


When It's Cold, I Think of You.

by arizonasnow



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-11-28 16:04:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 37,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11421408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arizonasnow/pseuds/arizonasnow
Summary: He was beginning to believe that she was just a twinkling moment splashed across the blackboard of his mind... until she wasn't.





	1. He's Not Okay

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Catch Me if You Can](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10741146) by [arizonasnow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arizonasnow/pseuds/arizonasnow). 

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time may pass, but she'd never be forgotten.

** November 12, 1983: Mike **

_ "EL, WHERE ARE YOU?! ELEVEN?" Mike Wheeler screamed, his dusky brown eyes scanning the room rapidly. They flittered over every square inch of the classroom before desperately looking towards Lucas and Dustin, who were doing just the same. They were searching like squirrels for their hidden acorns in winter, having forgotten where they were. Desperately in need of whatever they were looking for. The classroom that had once been flaming with intensity just under a minute earlier was now stone-cold, left to rot as the shock set in. Mike could feel stomach acid bubbling in his throat and he swallowed it down quickly before the sound of sirens began to blare outside. Although his vision was blurred, Mike could see Dustin and Lucas flinching at the noise before they began to walk towards the door, shakily. Mike didn't want to follow them. It was almost as if he couldn't. His shaking legs didn't want to bring themselves out of the room. Not until he found Eleven. She had to be in there somewhere. Maybe she was just under a cabinet or invisible or something? Mike didn't know the answer. His mind was whirling and his fingers were twitching until an EMT came into the room, followed by Dustin, to collect him and make sure he was alright. _

_ He could remember his mother's yelling as he sat on the edge of the ambulance, wrapped in a safety blanket. He could feel every fiber of the scratchy material pressing into his skin, and every gust of November wind dissolving into his bones. When Karen Wheeler finally found her son, she wrapped him into a sloppy hug, but he didn't hug her back. He just limply stood there, in his mother's embrace, waiting for something that wasn't going to happen. He had his jittery eyes glued onto the door, waiting for an EMT to come out, carrying a fragile girl with the Chief's blue flannel over a pale pink dress. He was waiting to see her snowflake skin and warm brown eyes. He never saw them. _

Mike went home that night without saying a word to either of his parents. Something had changed inside of him. A switch had been moved into it's "off" position, and for the next month, Karen Wheeler would be trying desperately to turn it back on. The first night was the easiest for Mike. His conscious wasn't stable enough to let him have a full thought. He numbly walked up the stairs, guided by his mother's arm, and laid in his bed for a solid three hours, staring up at the ceiling. He followed the blades of the fan as it turned quickly, but lost track after a few turns before rolling onto his side. His bedside table came into view of his cold, dark brown eyes and he saw the figurines he'd shown Eleven. Most of them were on the floor, with Yoda still standing there in all of his plastic glory.

He wasn't sure when or how, but eventually Mike closed his eyes and let himself drown into what he would think was a dreamless sleep. He found himself in a cold place, surrounded by blackness. It was just him, until it wasn't. He saw something in the distance, and when he stepped towards it, he found himself in a thin pool of water. So, he took another step onto this oceanic surface and began to walk towards the figure in the distance. As he got closer, the foggy haze disappeared and he immediately recognized Eleven. That’s when he broke into a sprint, each stride picking up more speed as he desperately raced towards her. When he got there, he was running too fast to be able to stop, and he crashed into the water beside her, knocking her a little bit on the process. When he looked down at her, she was cold and barely breathing. He lifted her up and put his head against her chest, desperately trying to hear her heartbeat. It was faint, like a moth's fluttering wings, but she was alive. Mike began to cry softly, joy overflowing his body. She was alive. She was with him. He stroked her hair lightly, a few teardrops falling onto her body. As the first one hit, her eyes began to open, and her body began to fade away in wisps, eventually, the entire scene followed.

Mike was woken up by his mother at around seven AM the next morning. He had been screaming at the top of his lungs and thrashing in his bed. She had managed to calm him down, but he seemed quite shaken. Mike sent her a bewildered look and she went downstairs, returning with a tray of breakfast a minute later. She kissed the top of his head and then left him to be alone. He appreciated this- he didn't want to talk to anyone, specifically his mother. Although she was kind and tried her best, she could pester him for hours about whatever she wanted him to do, or how she expected him to feel. He wasn't going to have it today. 

Mike sighed and poured a bit of syrup over his eggs before picking at them for a minute. He put the tray back on the floor after not touching a single thing, specifically the eggos next to his scrambled eggs, and pretended to go back to sleep when his mother came back inside. In reality, he was just laying there, staring into nothing. And that's how things were for a while. Mike would rarely eat. Sometimes he'd sleep. Sometimes he wouldn't. In his dreams, all he could see was Eleven, disappearing into a flickering cloud of ash as the demogorgon screamed in anger. 

After a few months, Karen thought of taking him to therapy. It was now early April. Mike skipped school occasionally, rarely saw his friends, and didn't talk to anyone, really. He just sat to himself, staring off into space. The first, and only, therapy appointment was a wreck. Mike refused to talk to the therapist and when she began to lecture him on how it was important to let his feelings out, he lectured her on the effects of grief. He yelled at the therapist for ten minutes, at the top of his lungs, before walking right out of the office, calm as ever. He left the building and his mother came following after to find him waiting in the car to leave. 

His thirteenth birthday rolled around and everyone had a family dinner. Nancy discussed how her boyfriend, Steve Harrington, was going to go to University of Indiana the next year and how she was planning to go visit him every weekend. Steve was a year older than her, and was a senior. Nancy was a junior and was getting ready for exams, as Mike's birthday was in early May, and exams were coming up in the high school. It was Monday, May 14, to be exact. Mike ate, for once, which was a breakthrough, leaving Karen satisfied. He talked, leaving Ted satisfied. He smiled, leaving Nancy satisfied. It was all a façade, though. Mike put on a mask every day. He laughed with his friends at school, paid attention on class, acted like everything was fine and that he was over the mystery girl he'd known for a week, when he really wasn't. In all honesty, none of the four kids were okay. Will was utterly traumatized from the Upside Down and was extremely jittery for a while. Dustin's sense of humor seemed to die down, and he became more serious. Lucas got even more stubborn and tended to lose his temper easily, but not as easily as Mike. One negative comment about Eleven and he was ready to throw punches. 

For his birthday, he got a new Supercom, as his old one was scrappy and damaged, from Lucas, Dustin, and Will. His parents got him a new notebook to write his campaigns in, as his old one was running out of room. Nancy got tickets to take him to the premier of Ghostbusters at The Hawk, the local theatre. Nancy had... issues there. She decided she'd sacrifice some of her reputation to take her brother to the movies, though. It'd be worth it in the end. Yes, June 8th, 1984 was a night no one would forget, for all the wrong reasons. 

The movie was amazing, and Nancy was rather satisfied with herself when she saw Mike's smile during the middle of the movie when she went to get popcorn. When she got back, his smile had faded, but she could see the corners of his lips turn up every time the Ghostbusters did something funny or defeated a ghost. After the movie ended, the two walked back to the parking lot where Mike flinched and stopped in his tracks, seeing a group of boys staring back at him. Nancy recognized Steve's younger brother, Troy, and that was it. Mike recognized Troy, James, and one other guy he didn't know. Suddenly Troy stepped towards him.

"Not so tough now without your freak girlfriend, are you, frogface?" He sneered, and James fist-bumped him. This sent Mike over the edge, and before Nancy could stop him, the thirteen year old was running across the parking lot and slamming his body into his younger classmates'. Mike was the oldest due to being held back in kindergarten because of his nearly-summer birthday and other reasons, but he was still smaller than a lot of other kids his age. He threw most of the punches and ended up giving Troy Harrington a black eye, but not before he got a split lip and was pulled away by both Nancy and James. Luckily, the police weren't involved, but Mike got into a lot of trouble at home. 

Nancy didn't snitch, but trouble was just a phone call away, and Mrs. Harrington was as angry as ever when she dialed the Wheelers' phone number that night. Mike went to his room without a problem, acting like nothing happened at all, which baffled Karen and Ted Wheeler. As his parents, they were both concerned about Mike. They wanted their playful, kind-hearted son back. Due to an anonymous tip and a package delivered at the Wheelers' door, that was going to become possible very soon.

 

**June 12, 1984: Karen**

Karen Wheeler didn't feel like going downstairs to open the door, but she knew she had to. As a mother of three, she was busy enough. Nancy was looking through college brochures even though she was only a Junior, and Ted was encouraging her to go to University of Indiana, his school. She already wanted to go there since that's where her boyfriend went, but there were also some other options, like NYU, which she had her eye on as well. Her sort-of-friend Jonathan Byers was interested in going there as well, and Nancy thought it wouldn't be the worst if she was accepted there, so she planned on applying. Holly was off at daycare, like usual. The four year old was full of energy and always seemed to find something interesting to do, and it made Karen's life a lot easier when she discovered a new daycare center down the street. Mike? Well, he'd become incredibly independent. To Karen's disliking, he learned to cook for himself and rarely came to family meals, which were starting to fall apart anyways due to Nancy's studying and homework, Ted's work schedule, and Mike's need to be alone.

When she approached the door, she peeked out the window to see who was there. To her dismay, there was no one there. She saw a truck driving away that she recognized as the Chief's old rust-bucket. She opened the door cautiously and looked around before peeking down, seeing nothing but a brown-paper wrapped parcel. She picked it up and hesitantly took it inside, locking the door behind her. It had become routine to lock the door. After November 1983, many citizens became paranoid. The press was all over the scene, but the police kept quiet. 

She carried the package into her bedroom and closed the door behind her, sitting down at Ted's desk to open it. Karen found his scissors and quickly cut the yarn holding the paper together and opened the package, finding several booklets and papers inside. She began to read and covered her mouth after a few moments, shock settling into her system. She was seeing the face of the girl who her home had been searched for. The girl who her son and his friends were reportedly hiding.

The girl who saved her son's life. 

Karen immediately hid the contents of the package under her bed, knowing that nobody would look there. After all, they wouldn't be looking for something they didn't know about, right? Karen walked quickly down the stairs again before picking up the phone and dialing a familiar phone number. She had the number at the top of her head for months, as the two mothers frequently exchanged calls about their children's well-doing. She was calling Joyce Byers, knowing she had something to do with the deliverance of this package. When Joyce picked up, Karen asked her many questions.

Joyce answered every one of them. Most were about Eleven, and Karen was becoming educated on the history of this girl. She learned about Terry Ives, Becky Ives, Martin Brenner, and many more people whose names she wouldn't end up remembering. She had to talk to her son. She knew things now, and she didn't have a choice. She had the information confirmed by her son's best friend's mother and a mysterious parcel, and even if it was unbelievable, a lot of other things had happened around Hawkins, and it seemed logical compared to other things she had heard.

Karen placed the phone on the wall again before knocking on Mike's door a few times. She heard a quiet "come in" and entered, closing the door behind her. Surprisingly enough, Mike was sitting on the floor of his closet. Karen didn't really know why, but he seemed to be comfortable there, wrapped in a blanket with a book sitting next to him as well as his Supercom. "Oh, were you talking to your friends?" Karen asked, pointing to the Supercom. Mike shook his head. He knew why it was there. After a few minutes, Karen realized the answer too.

"I know..." Karen began. "I know about Eleven." She said. Mike's lip quivered lightly and she could see tears begin to build up in her son's eyes. "I know what she did for you, all of you. Mike... I'm so sorry. If I had known about this I would've tried to help you, I promise." She said, taking him into a hug. Mike didn't budge for a few seconds, but began to sob into his mother's shoulder, his body shaking as waves of grief rushed over him as if his body was the shore and his mind was the moon, pulling in the wake. Karen held his head up and looked into his eyes, seeing the reflection of her own husband's in them.

"Mike, I promise, it's going to be okay. You can talk to me any time you want." She said softly, wiping a stray tear off of his cheek. Mike sniffled and nodded before Karen got up and placed a box of tissues next to him. "I know this is hard for you. I'll bring up some lunch in ten minutes." Karen soothed, leaving her son's bedroom. Mike watched her leave and turned to his Supercom, fiddling with the buttons every few seconds like he had seen Eleven do before she managed to contact Will.

 

**July 27, 1984: Mike**

Lucas was getting tired of Mike constantly sulking around. So were Dustin and Will. Eventually, the three boys came up with a plan. They'd build Eleven a memorial. It wouldn't be anything fancy, they couldn't afford it, but it would be simple and meaningful. Lucas, Dustin, and Will biked over to Mike's house one afternoon. Dustin had a full backpack, and Lucas knocked on Mike's door. After a few minutes of painful convincing, Mike agreed to come with them, and pulled his bike out of the garage. He'd barely gone anywhere since the beginning of the summer, and it had been kept in the garage the whole time like a body, waiting to rot. 

The boys arrived at the junkyard a few minutes earlier than they thought they would. It was near noon and Mike had told his mom he was leaving, but was feeling wrong for being there. He tried as many excuses as he could but the boys wouldn't take any of them, and stated that doing this would make him feel better. So, Mike climbed into the abandoned schoolbus and placed a few wildflowers that Lucas picked for him inside. Dustin had actually bought flowers from a stand down the street from the library, where he'd been doing summer work. Will had drawn an eggo waffle, as Mike had once cried to his friends about all sorts of things, and revealed a lot of information about Eleven to Will, who hadn't known her in the first place. He'd barely seen her when they briefly met in the Upside Down/Sensory-Deprivation Tank dream. 

It was something Lucas said that sent Mike over the edge, just like when he'd tackled Troy. "She's in a better place." Lucas murmured, and Mike was overflowing with rage. "No, she's not! She's not dead, Lucas!" Mike yelled suddenly. This shocked everyone, especially Lucas. "Yes, she is, Mike! If she isn't dead, where the hell is she?!" He snapped back, and Mike's body took over. His fist hit Lucas square in the face and the dark-skinned boy stepped back, shocked. It was the second time Mike had given someone a black eye, and he felt like both people deserved it.

Dustin and Will both tried to get Mike to come to his senses, but he couldn't hear them. His heart was pounding in his ears as he got onto his bike and left, throwing up the finger to them as he pedaled away. Two weeks later, Karen promptly made him apologize due to the start of 7th grade approaching. She had heard about the incident recently and knew it was very un-Mike. After everyone was back in good terms, Mike silently began 7th grade.

 

**August 14, 1984: Mike**

Mike Wheeler's skinny hand slammed down onto his bedside table as his alarm clock promptly blared into his ears, waking him from another dreamless night. He hadn't been sleeping well for a long time now, and it was just another night to him. He had gotten used to nightmares and dreamless states, accepting the fact that a good night's rest was a rare occurrence. Dreams were basically extinct in his mind now, just a mirage in the distance as he walked through the desert of his brain. That night had been particularly rough due to back-to-school-jitters. He woke up twice during the night and could hear his parents arguing all the way from upstairs, but managed to go to sleep after covering his ears with his comforter. 

He sighed, turning over onto his side as he heard his mother coming up the stairs. He heard her knock on his door, but the noises were muffled. He'd covered his ears again, trying to keep the sound from spreading to his brain like weeds in the garden his mother had once kept. That god-damned garden. Mike had been 10, and his mother decided to try growing all of the crops for the family. She didn't want to buy lettuce or tomatoes from the grocery store anymore, so she took Mike to the local nursery and picked up a few packets of seeds. The garden lasted a few weeks before squirrels began sneaking in and eating the leaves. Karen had been exasperated. Mike didn't really care. Weeds had taken over the garden anyways, nothing good was left of it. That's how Mike saw his heart at the time. Eleven was a flower, the most beautiful rose. Even the prick of her thorn was sweet, like when he was thrown back on that fateful night that she disappeared. Mike visioned her as a rose- with creamy pink petals and lush leaves. Then came the weeds. Ugly, dark green vines wrapped around the rose and the entire garden was gone eventually. 

There were dandelions, though. Those dandelions were Dustin, Will, and Lucas. Although they weren't comparable to the rose's beauty, they were flowers nonetheless. Even if they were weeds to some people, they were still growing in Mike's garden. Mike figured he'd get over Eleven eventually. He'd get a girlfriend and be normal again, and live life like he had before. But every time he had those thoughts, they disappeared just as quickly as they came. He'd never be normal. He didn't want a girlfriend, the only girl he'd ever liked was presumed dead. His friends were scarred and rough around the edges, just like him.

Karen was getting tired of trying to talk to the brick wall that was her son, so she ripped the covers off of his body and curtly told him that he had to leave for school in ten minutes if he was going to be on time. Mike just nodded and stared up at her blankly before she left. He got up and pulled on some clothes, a striped green shirt, khakis, and his regular tennis shoes. He didn't bother with a jacket- it was August, blazing hot outside, and jackets "weren't cool" at the moment. He brushed his teeth, ran his fingers through his hair a few times, and ran down stairs with his backpack around his shoulder. Mike popped two eggos into the toaster, ready to take them to-go, since there was no time to sit around and wait for a full-on family meal. Those hadn't happened in a while.

He shouted a quick goodbye and walked outside, hopping onto his bike. 7th grade meant the middle of middle school. A new year, a new start, a new everything. This year, he wouldn't be known as "zombie's friend" or "frogface". Zombie had been Will's nickname for a while since, according to most of Hawkins, he had basically come back to life, just like a zombie from a horror movie. This nickname wasn't appreciated, but it was better than "fairy", so Will decided to put up with it. Mike was headed towards the school.

 

**November 12, 1984: Mike**

The school year was mostly uneventful. Lucas had a new friend named Max. The other boys weren't as close to her- she was basically Lucas' girlfriend. The two had an obvious crush on eachother, and Will, Dustin, and Mike were just watching the scenario unfold. Today was Monday, November 12, 1984, and Mike had something he needed to do. He was going to Eleven's memorial at the bus, and he wanted to just stay there and take everything in. He was surprised to see that Dustin, Will, and Lucas were already there by the time he arrived. 

After a quick greeting, they just sat in eachother's presences, and it was almost like she was there...

 

** November 12, 1984: Eleven **

She was. Eleven sat to herself, her arms curled around her knees. She was in the Upside Down’s version of the bus, which was laying on it’s side. It had been thrown around when some kind of monster went looking for a meal and El went to take shelter. It made a bad decision looking for her though. Although she was small, she was easily the most powerful thing in that dimension, as her powers developed and changed during the year she had spent there. Today was the anniversary. She wasn’t celebrating her imprisonment, but her time spent with the four most important people in her life. Dustin, Lucas, even Will, and mostly Mike. He was a different kind of important that Elle couldn’t pinpoint, but all she knew was that he meant something to her that none of the other boys made her feel. So she was laying there, basking in some kind of unknown heat. She had no idea that they were there at the same time, feeling the fire of her presence while she felt theirs, but it was nice for her.

The Upside Down was cold. Freezing at times, especially during winter. When snow came to Hawkins, snow came to the Upside Down. But not the kind, jolly flakes that made playful slush around the quarry-lake's edge or made a powder on the hill of Dustin's house that the boys could sled down. El didn't know what that was. Instead, she got emotionless, grey flakes that melted into foul-smelling water as soon as they touched the ground. Even though it was just about as bad as it could be, Eleven enjoyed staring at the "snow". Although she didn't have much of a shelter, she watched the flakes fall from outside. It was mixed with the usual ash that stormed from time to time, but was nice. It didn't rain in the Upside Down, so Eleven wasn't quite sure how it could snow, but she didn't understand the water cycle anyways, so questions were left unthought. 

As for her current state, she was at the top of the food chain in the Upside Down. No other monster had psychological powers, just brute strength. This had been made apparently clear when one of the few monsters there decided to mistake Eleven for a to-go meal, and in all of her glory, El served him a dish made of karma. After that, even the smaller creatures avoided her, making pathways whenever she walked by and keeping a safe distance. Eleven would never hurt anything that could not hurt her, however. She didn't kill for sport. Only for protection. She learned the lesson not to eat the bodies of monsters as well when she came across a smaller creature eating the body of the demogorgon when she arrived in the Upside Down. She was initially curious as to what the creature was- it was a small, rat-like mammal, but after taking a few bites of flesh over a span of a minute, the rat-creature had a seizure, foamed at the mouth, and died. Eleven had no intentions to die. She wasn't giving up.

She'd been living off of food in the box for months. Her hair? Well, it had grown to her shoulders, but was messy and dirty. After all, this was the Upside Down. There were no showers. If she felt dirty, she'd have to bathe in the quarry water, which in the Upside Down was toxic, so there was really no way for her to clean off. She was just floating around there, waiting for someone to give her a sign. She needed something to tell her she was going to make it through. Of course, her inspiration and motivation was right in front of her. Literally. She lived in the Upside Down's version of his basement.

Mike, obviously. She only knew him for a week, but he was the light of her life. He saved her, and she could never repay him for that. He took her in and gave her shelter and some strange feeling in her stomach that she didn't entirely hate, and of course his friends were there as well. Dustin and Lucas being the ones she'd known for the longest time were also motivating for her. For Will, that was her only reason to be in the Upside Down in the first place. If she was bitter, she could blame him for the entire incident, but Eleven was not in the least bit. Instead, she remembered how Mike, Dustin, and Lucas were determined to find him, and figured they'd be happy with him now and could move on without her.

That's not how friendship worked though. True friendship left you searching for months, which is what the boys did before finally giving up, advised by Hopper and their parents. It had become unhealthy for them to look for something most people didn't know existed. That was true- Eleven technically was not a person. She had no records of any birth certificate, adoption certificate, nada. Just herself. This baffled Joyce and Hopper, who were the ones initially looking for her, until Joyce stopped to take care of Will. Hopper never gave up though.

Eleven knew who was giving her the food, because she'd wait by the box at the same time every night when he'd come by. She'd recognize his raspy voice from the Upside Down. She knew it was him, and she was grateful for his help. She missed everyone else, though. It was hard being alone every day while trying not to be eaten by large, dangerous monsters, even if she was on the top of the pyramid. After all, when she was asleep, it was a perfect time to attack. However, it had only happened once, and Eleven left the creature running for its life. For now, Eleven was on her own, defending herself whenever she had to, protecting her food and home.

She couldn't predict the future, but she knew it was going to be a while before she saw home again. 


	2. It's not Over

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A recollection of time during Eleven's absence.

** May 17, 1985: Mike **

His brown eyes couldn't stop glancing towards the clock, like it was destined to make or break his entire life. It wasn't, but the newly turned 14-year-old couldn't wait. 2:59, the clock taunted. He couldn't wait another minute, although he had to. He didn't have a choice. The teacher gave up on her "last day of 7th grade" speech since no one was listening anyways. Dustin was tapping his foot rapidly against the floor from his seat next to Mike, and the raven-haired boy was too caught up in staring at the clock on the wall to pick up on the annoying noise. The bell finally rang after an agonizing sixty seconds and several kids cheered, like getting out of school for summer was some kind of miracle. Mike never really liked kids who did that. When the bell would ring, a certain group would scream and shout and cheer at the end of the school day, before summer, fall, winter, and spring break. It got quite annoying after a while, as one could imagine. Dustin was getting up, and Mike was following after him. Both boys were stuffing their notes into their backpacks, unlike the rest of the class, who were taking their notes out and throwing them away. They were sort of known for that as the school's most popular group of nerds.

After Will's reappearance in November 1983, the boys had been momentarily popular. Everyone wanted to know about each little detail, mostly crowding Will in the hallways. Dustin had to step in and act as a body guard from time to time due to his tallness/bigger size and ability to block other people from his way, and sometimes Will would get so stressed he'd break down into a full-blown panic attack in the middle of the hallway. After an awkward pep rally to get the kids to leave Will alone as requested by his mother, the hype died down and life was semi-normal again in school. Nobody would forget about what happened, though, and it was the most exciting thing to ever happen in Hawkins, next to having Billy Joel perform at a bar once. Everyone had heard about it, and everyone wanted to "help", by sending flowers and chocolates and such. Joyce had been bombarded, as did Hopper, Jonathan, Mike, Nancy, Dustin, and Lucas. Everyone was asked many questions that they weren't allowed to answer, mostly due to the whole lab thing.

Joyce had spoken to the people from Hawkins Power and Light after Will's reappearance- he had spoken with them as well. He had to have appointments with lab doctors to make sure whatever creature had wormed its way into his system was dead, and the slugs that came with it were gone too. Will had thrown up slugs for months, and had a ritual of killing them, which involved a bucket, gasoline, and a match. It wasn't pretty, but Will did what he had to. He kept the secret from Joyce for a while, too, before he felt too sick to burn one of them and she accidentally found it in the bathroom before she was going to take a shower. It was quite a shock, and Will got yelled at for at least two hours about how reckless it was for him to keep that from her. So, they went to the lab, the one place Joyce didn't want to turn. She didn't want to explain to Will that it was their fault he was stuck in there, that they knew he was there and never tried to get him, that they were the ones who made a fake corpse for him, or that they were the ones who deprived a girl his age for all of her life and used to bend her to their every will and command. Instead, she said they were victims of the attack as well and made up some kind of backstory that would get Will to agree to go there. He didn't even question it when he saw a shaggy-looking, long-haired man in a hospital gown who looked like he'd seen a ghost. He assumed it was another victim of the demogorgon who had been in the Upside Down just like him. It wasn't. The poor man was another experiment, just like Eleven, being hauled off to unknown whereabouts.

The lab itself was deep in trouble. With the Director of the experiments, Dr. Martin Brenner, dead, there was no idea on how to continue, so the lab had a hard choice to make. They could try and proceed with the experimentation, or shut the entire thought down and have it filed away, only to really get rid of any evidence that it ever existed and pretend it never happened. They had no FDA approval, no consent from experiments, and no idea what they were doing when they had started. Brenner simply had an idea and decided to go through with it. His idea went through many different stages- ten of them, in fact, until he finally got it right. Experiments One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, and Ten were defective- without enough power to do what they needed. They could MAYBE be transported to the In Between for a maximum of ten seconds every few weeks or had enough power to levitate a pencil for five, which wasn't enough for Brenner. When Eleven was born into the lab, everything fell into place. She was the last experiment to come into the lab permanently and had enough power potential to leave the other experiments in the dust. First, she was mentally conditioned to believe whatever Brenner told her. Every lie he fed her, she listened carefully and believed with all of her heart. Each reason for her to obey, every curiosity door that he slammed and locked in her face, and the regrets she was scolded for. As for the other experiments- most of them were scrapped. Executed, really. Brenner had no need for One, Two, and Three when Eleven came along, so they were killed off. Afterwards, Four and Five were executed when Brenner realized they didn't have the potential to do anything, and then he realized Six had no powers at all, and they were all gone. The experiments had begun in the 60s, when Brenner would trick mothers into believing they miscarried their children after putting them into Sensory Deprivation tanks, drugging them, and messing up their mental well-being. One, Two, and Three were born in '61, Four and Five in '62, Six in '64, Seven in '65, Eight, Nine, and Ten in '69, and finally, Eleven in '71. It took many years to develop Eleven's powers, and when everything had gone to shit and she'd escaped, they didn't know what to do.

So they did what they knew: chase, cause fear, and kill. They'd get rid of anyone or anything in their way to get Eleven back, and they believed she had no rights as a human. She had no birth record, no legal papers, nothing. To the world, she was nonexistent, and with the way she was treated, it was good they didn't know about her. Terry Ives had been "let go", and sent back to her home, where she stayed for the rest of her life, really. She died in October '84 due to suicide from depression. Becky Ives had found her and cried for weeks before eventually following the same path, overdosing on methamphetamine. A neighbor found Becky, and both Ives sisters were buried next to each other. As far as the town knew, Terry was a lunatic who spend her life searching for her nonexistent daughter and Becky was the loyal junkie who stayed by her side until the very end. Hopper and Joyce had been the only people to attend their "funeral" which consisted of the two of them staring down at the graves. In honesty, there was no funeral. The Ives weren't a "good" family. Terry and Becky were the only ones known to live around in Hawkins, and they didn't necessarily have the best reputation anyways. They had a decent home, income, and everything, but Terry's mental health ruined everything. So, Hopper and Joyce were the ones to stand by their graves, replace the flowers and everything. Joyce stopped bringing fresh flowers after a while, but Hopper never did. He sold out Terry's daughter, Becky's niece, and felt like the reason they were both six feet under was partially his fault. He could've told them about Eleven. He could've prevented this. But he didn't. He felt guilty, about that on top of a number of other things.

Hopper usually dropped off food at the box anyways. When it was taken, he knew there was a possibility that it was a wild animal, but something told him it wasn't. He owed this to Eleven anyways, she was hiding from the lab if anyone or anything. Hopper never told a soul about his box-adventures and kept it completely to himself. He was sort of known for his secrets at that point, and most people in town who hadn't been afraid of him before were now terrified. He was quite the dark horse and was very avoidable. He had a soft spot for Joyce and her family, and came by from time to time. He never let himself grow too close though, afraid of what would really happen. He didn't want to let anyone in. After being interrogated by Hawkins Power and Light for a while, he decided to start over. He became closer to his coworkers and left his wife, although they never formally divorced. He brought the food to the box and even prayed a little bit before stopping. The last time he had prayed was after Sarah died, and he couldn't bring himself to do that again. He couldn't see her eyes staring at him in his dreams, just like he saw Eleven's, although both of their eyes were colder now.

Eventually, Will was done with the lab, and the lab itself was done too. The project was abandoned, and every experiment was killed off to prevent from anyone telling anything. The workers and doctors swore to secrecy to keep each other out of trouble, and the building itself was abandoned too. It was now overgrown with ivy and the hallways were colder and emptier than ever. People who had formally worked there moved on, some leaving Hawkins, some staying and rebuilding their own lives, with families and borders to keep from getting close to other people. Hopper sometimes saw familiar lab-faces in the grocery store, at the bar, and walking around in general. He had been sworn to secrecy as well, as were the Wheelers, Sinclairs, Hendersons, and Byers. Even the Harringtons were forced to remain silent after the events of 1983. The aftermath was quiet and dangerous, and everyone knew the penalty for speaking their mind: death. Although it was not guaranteed, it was a possibility. The government would do whatever they had to in order to keep them quiet, and if it meant money, they'd pay them, but if they didn't keep their mouths shut, it was death. Nobody wanted to find out if they were serious or not, it was too risky and too scary. After Will's treatments ended, the lab packed up and disappeared, and the families were payed.

Joyce received the most money, which was a ton, to keep her from spilling details. Will's treatments were complimentary, as demanded by Joyce. Hopper received some as well, everyone did. His went towards a new house, which was small, but better than a trailer. It was built where his old trailer had been, and he enjoyed waking up to the lake view every morning, even if his wife had moved out before she got to sleep in his new bed. That was actually better for him. He didn't know quite how to love anymore. He'd remarried twice since Sarah's death and still hadn't been able to feel anything, and this was the final straw for him. He basically gave up.

But most of this was left unknown except for the small, close-knit group of families. For now, Mike, Dustin, Lucas, and Will were shuffling out of the school building towards their bikes so they could finally get out of that damned place for a few months and spend the summer relaxing, watching movies, playing Atari with eachother, and going through every campaign that Mike sent their way without having to worry about "school nights". It was nice, and things were starting to become normal again. Will wasn't having as many flashbacks, and Dustin's sense of humor returned. Mike acted less depressed than he had before, and Lucas' temper was less short than it was after the whole "Mike punched Lucas" fiasco. Things were looking up for the group.

 

** July 4, 1985: Eleven **

It was a Thursday evening, but Eleven didn’t know that. She didn’t even know the date. She just knew it was summer, since it was getting quite warm in the Upside Down. She knew about the seasons due to a book Papa had given her when she had been good one day. She loved reading, even though she had the reading level of a second grader. For the most part, he had read to her, or sent a nurse to do it. It was her reward for doing what he wanted, and she would eagerly obey, if it meant getting food, sleep, a shower, or a book, which was the best of the best. She’d gotten a book the first time she crushed that can of Coca Cola, and it was marvelous. She never forgot the story of Anne of Green Gables, and treasured the book itself until she ended up escaping the facility.

Something was bothering Eleven though. She was scared, curled into a ball with her hands pressed against her ears. Noises traveled from the Rightside Up to Eleven’s little hellhole and she didn’t like them, not at all. They weren’t very loud, but they were loud enough to shake the ground beneath El’s feet and cause her to shrink with fear. Even some of the monsters could be heard running from them outside of Eleven’s shelter. She didn’t know what fireworks were, so she was petrified, waiting for the horrible crackling noises to cease. She didn’t sleep that night, as they never really did.

Eleven could sometimes hear things from the Rightside Up. She could hear only loud noises, like thunder or fireworks, which were two of the things that scared her the most. She hated the noises from the Rightside Up more than she hated a lot of things. She wanted to cry every time they blasted into her ears, and all she wanted to do was get away from them. She hated everything about loud noises, they had scared her since she was little. She had learned to associate a frown and loud speaking, aka yelling, with her being in trouble, and a smile and loud speaking to her doing something good. Although these noises had no face, Eleven could imagine them scowling evilly at her, taunting her from the Rightside Up. Almost as if they knew she couldn’t be there, home, with the people she loved. The noises were mocking her.

After a few hours, they managed to go away, and Eleven finally put her head against the fabric of Mike’s Upside Down blanket fort and closed her eyes, withering away into another dreamless state. Sometimes she had dreams- of Mike, Lucas, Dustin, and Will (but mostly Mike), eggos, and so on so forth. There weren’t many “dreams” for her to have, since she had such a tiny amount of happy memories stored in her troubled mind. She had nightmares most commonly, of seeing Barb’s body, the demogorgon, and the lab. She wanted the nightmares to go away, but had learned to deal with them eventually. After all, she’d been in that place for almost two years. She’d managed to survive off of the bare minimum. Thoughts of Mike, her friends, and her experiences during the week of November 12, 1983 kept her going. They gave her hope, they gave her a will to keep going in the horrible life she was living. She didn’t have any other reason. She didn’t know that the lab was gone. She didn’t know that Will was safe. She didn’t know that any of the other boys were safe, specifically Mike. Her motivation was to be able to see them, happy and healthy, when she got back from the Upside Down. She had no idea how she’d be able to do that, though. In order to leave the Upside Down, she’d have to find or make a gate, which took an incredible amount of energy, that El didn’t currently have. She had been waiting that entire time to be able to muster it up, and it still wasn’t there. She didn’t know if it would take her to the In Between or to the Rightside Up. She really didn’t want to go to the In Between, but she’d rather go there than stay in the Upside Down. At least there, she could see Mike again. He wouldn’t see her, since he was in the Rightside Up. She could interact with people in the Upside Down while she was in the Rightside Up, but not the other way around. She’d fiddled with Mike’s Upside Down Supercom for months, and got no results. She tried as hard as she could, and nothing. But she did realize she wouldn’t be able to survive in the In Between. There was no food, no decent water, nothing. Just the void. She understood that more than a few hours in there would drive her literally crazy, and she’d just rot there. It was worse, in fact, than the Upside Down. At least she could reach the box of food there, and had the shaded, darkened Hawkins to explore.

She’d actually learned a lot about Hawkins. When she wasn’t hiding or getting food, she walked around. She made her way to Will’s house, since that was the only one she knew was there. She went to most of the houses in Hawkins, raiding them for supplies that could help her survive. She never wound up with clothes, but sometimes found blankets and such. Food there was always stale and bad, though, and she learned not to eat it unless it came from the box after ending up with food poisoning for a week when she ate a box of crackers found in a random house on Deerborne Avenue. It was a hard lesson to learn, as it meant she would have to wait however-so-long it took the mysterious food-deliverer to drop off a donation, but she was grateful for it, and she’d rather wait than suffer. The same thing was with her state of being. She would rather wait until she was powerful enough to open the gate than try and open one now, and be in pain until she could recharge, which would double the time she had been there already. That was the last thing she wanted, and the last thing she wanted to think about anyways. She just wanted to go home.

 

** July 13/14, 1985: Mike **

He had begun working on a new campaign two weeks earlier, during June, and was sure this one would trump all of his older ones. It had taken forever, and he felt like it still wasn’t quite ready, if only he had someone to proof read and beta it… and then his thoughts drifted to Eleven. If she were there, she’d probably be eager to do so. She’d probably share his hype over it, and be excited to watch them play Dungeons & Dragons for hours at a time. He gulped and bit the tip of his eraser before placing it on the page and beginning to write again.

Before he knew it, he had finished and perfected everything he knew to finish/perfect. He was going to call the guys over to come the next day and play through it. He knew they didn’t have any plans, so it was definitely going to happen on the 14th. He’d have them over starting at 8 am, and the campaign would probably last until 3 AM the next morning. He was excited, and hoped they liked it as much as he did. It was his pride and joy, and answered many of the questions that they had asked. It was hard for him to write though, and brought up some old feelings and memories. He would finally tell them what happened to the Cave of Flowers, the Lost Knight, and the Proud Princess. They would finally understand who was who, what was what, and how it all fit into their lives. They would see what he had been through as the knight who was pining after his princess. He decided that he would move on. Mike was taking his life back.

Then, it began.

Dustin was sitting next to Mike, who was next to Lucas, and Will was next to him, around the small, square, wooden table in the Wheelers’ basement. They’d gotten through about seven hours of the campaign before the details started to pour in. At first they had been chasing random creatures through a forest realm, but now it was time to move into the juicy plot Mike had planned for the past two weeks. He’d poured his heart into it, and now, they were going to see. Dustin was the first one to realize it. “Wait a second, we’re heading towards the Sea of Fallen Stars…” He said. “That’s where the Proud Princess’ tower is.” He pointed out with a small gasp. Lucas looked over at him. “Oh my god, we’re going to find out what happened, aren’t we?” He said with another gasp. Will was on the edge of his seat. “Wait, but remember, there are a ton of weird things in Moonsea. We can’t get caught by the Tarresque, or even worse, the Behemoth!” He stated, and Lucas and Dustin nodded. “Okay, we’ve gotta be careful…”

Mike flipped the page. “Something makes a noise behind the the bushes… it’s a small creature, making high-pitched noises. Lucas, do you investigate?” Mike asked, and Lucas nodded. “Yes, I proceed forward.” He said, gulping. “Okay.” Mike began. “Lucas, you push the bushes to the side in order to reveal… a helmet! It’s laying on the ground, a note-in-a-bottle beside it.” Mike said, and Lucas looked over at Dustin and Will. “I… I open it.” Lucas said, hesitating. Mike cleared his voice. “It had been many moons since I last heard the Princess’ call. My kingdom calls me though, and I must return.” He said, trying to deepen his voice to imitate the Lost Knight. Lucas looked over at the other boys. “Wait a second, the knight’s just going to leave?!” He said, confused. Dustin shrugged. “Maybe something happened to the princess.” He suggested. “Lucas, do you continue forward?” Mike asked. Lucas nodded. “Yes.” He replied. Mike looked at the others. “Do you follow?” He asked. Will and Dustin agreed, on the edge of their seats. “You pass what looks like the knight’s campsite. A fallen shelter passes and you can see a tower in the distance. With each step, your feet grow heavier. An oncoming sense of dread approaches you. Something definitely isn’t right.” He said, and Dustin was bug-eyed, waiting to hear what happened next.

“You approach the tower and see something large and scaly on the other side. Will, do you go to see what it is?” Mike asked. Will looked over at Dustin and Lucas. “Should I?” He asked, looking hesitant. Lucas nodded, while Dustin shook his head. “It could be dangerous.” Dustin warned. Lucas shook his head. “You have fireball, remember? Plus, you leveled up. You can totally roll a seven, thirteen, or two to defeat it, which is a lot easier than it was before.” He suggested. Will sucked in a breath. “I’ll move forward.” He said, looking over at Mike, who nodded.

“You hesitantly step forward until you draw your wand and leap around the corner. It’s… wait a second, it’s the BEHEMOTH!” Mike said dramatically. Dustin began cursing, Lucas broke into a cold sweat, and Will looked like he was going to piss himself. “But… wait… it’s not moving. You move closer and see blood dripping from it’s scaly side, and see a sword piercing through its skin. The Behemoth is dead!” The raven-haired boy spoke, looking over at each of his friends to see their reactions. Will was relieved but confused, Dustin was sighing, calming himself down, and Lucas looked like Mike had saved his life or something. “Oh thank god, we would’ve been so screwed.” Dustin said, sighing and wiping a bead of sweat off of his forehead. “Wait a second… who… who killed the Behemoth?” Will asked, looking over at everyone with confusion sparkling in his hazel eyes. Dustin’s eyes widened. “Oh my god. Oh my god.” He began. “Did we kill it before and forget… or was it the knight?” He asked. Everyone turned to Mike, signaling him to continue forward with the story. “Will the Wise, you walk to the other side… but what you see is shocking and strange.” Mike begins, raising one eyebrow. “Oh god, what did I see?” Will asked. Dustin is biting his nails and Lucas is so far on the edge of his seat he could fall at any given moment. “It’s the princess! Her bones are broken and her face is pale and lifeless.” Mike says gravely, pretending to fall to the ground before getting back up and sitting in the chair. “Wait, but that means… the princess must’ve fallen down to kill the Behemoth, but died when she hit the ground!” Dustin said with a gasp. “But the knight… he must’ve left before this happened.” Lucas added.

After another five hours, the campaign was over, but Will had some questions on his mind. Mike was going upstairs to get snacks, the boys were going to watch Star Wars upstairs in the living room TV. While Dustin and Lucas were getting settled on the living room couch, Will followed Mike into the kitchen. Mike turned around to see his friend and was surprised. “Oh, hey, Will. I didn’t know you followed me.” Mike said, chuckling gingerly. He could tell Will knew something was up. “The proud princess…” Will began, and Mike gulped. “It’s Eleven, isn’t it. And the Behemoth is the demogorgon. And you’re the Lost Knight. A-and the cave of flowers… is the Upside Down.” Will said gravely, crossing his arms. Mike gulped again and nodded. “Yeah, um, I decided to write about it.” He explained. Will sighed. “Why’d you let her die?” He asked. Mike’s mouth opened to speak, but words didn’t come out. He froze up. Will noticed and just left, joining Lucas and Dustin in the living room. They began to chat like nothing had happened at all. Mike turned away, closing his eyes tight. He let a single tear dribble down his left cheek. It caressed a line of freckles before falling onto the kitchen counter.

Mike cleaned himself up and walked into the living room. The boys started the movie before realizing Mike forgot the snacks, so he went back and retrieved them. Things weren’t the same with Will for a while, and Mike certainly was not okay. Will’s words kept replaying in his head. ‘Why’d you let her die… why’d you let her die… why’d you let her die…’ And Mike honestly couldn't answer the question, even though he tried as hard as he could. He just couldn't bring himself to answer it. He remembered her blood-drained face and blue lips as she turned to him, and even in that moment, she was beautiful. Every moment Mike spent with her lead up to that, and he found himself forgetting all about Luke Skywalker and concentrating on every detail he had about Eleven. Her chocolate brown eyes and ashy brown hair. Her smile, her frown, her thinking face. The way she flinched when a door opened or something was knocked over. He gulped and snapped out of his trance to the sound of Dustin screaming when the movie ended. He had thought about her the entire time, and felt pretty bad about it. So far, the Lost Knight had definitely not abandoned the tower. He was still by the Proud Princess' side, even though he longed to be in his kingdom. But he was as far from there as he could have ever been at that moment. 

** July 15, 1985: Will **

Will Byers wasn't supposed to know the things he did. He wasn't supposed to know what a demon-like creature looked like, or its hunting patterns. He wasn't supposed to know about a secret lab of doctors who were trying to heal him and keep his family quiet for some reason. He wasn't supposed to know about a girl with a shaved head and telekinesis. Of course, Will thought the entire concept of Eleven was a story, a gimmick, at first. Hearing his friends talk about some magical girl who they found in a storm who helped save his life seemed like absolute bullshit. Will wasn't in the mood to correct them while he was getting better- every movement was a struggle for him, and getting into an argument wasn't worth it. Although he wanted to defend his opinion on the fact that Eleven, to him, didn't exist, he eventually gave up when he heard his mother talking to the Chief of Police on the Byers' family living room.

He definitely wasn't supposed to overhear that conversation. They were discussing what to do about her. Apparently she was just gone. Poof. Will gulped as he rounded the corner, hearing the Chief's voice. Of course, that was back in 1983, when Will had first come back. It was right after Christmas, and Hopper had come over to talk to Joyce. Apparently things were getting rough. Apparently he wasn't supposed to hear anything about Eleven, but what he heard made him believe. His mother AND Hopper wouldn't make something up. So, he finally accepted the fact that he was alive thanks to Hopper, Joyce, and Eleven. She had done the finding while Hopper had literally given him CPR and Joyce took him back home and to the hospital. But Eleven did the hard work. He owed her for that.

Still, something was off about her. He didn't "trust" Eleven, even though he never knew her. He'd never seen her, and had no idea what she looked like or acted like. All he knew was that Mike had quite literally fallen both off of a cliff and in love with her. She'd saved him from the cliff, but not from love. Something about having one of his friends in love made him annoyed. Will was always one to easily become jealous, but he never acted upon it. When Dustin nearly went on a date with his crush in Seventh Grade, Will had basically annoyed him out of going because he didn't want to be the last one to get a girlfriend in the group. Will figured he would be- the other boys had all had crushes and romantic interests so far, except for Will. He just didn't want to feel left out. He couldn't stop Lucas and Max, since Lucas was quite literally too stubborn to be talked out of it. He didn't want to talk to Mike about his "relationship" with Eleven because he had seen the boy's reaction to Lucas and Dustin bringing her up. For the first month, Mike would burst into tears whenever her name, or even the number, was mentioned. After that first month, he got quiet and just stopped talking when she was mentioned. He was still like that for the most part, but at least now he would open up a little bit more. Will just wanted to know who the hell she was and why she made his friend so damn unhappy.

He felt resentment towards her for a while. But this all stopped in July 1985. July 14, 1985. After the campaign ended, Will approached Mike. He was glad that Mike was seemingly over Eleven, when he realized that the Lost Knight had left the Princess to go to his kingdom. Mike was the knight, Eleven was the princess, and the kingdom? Well, it was Dustin, Lucas, and Will. And his family, and everyone else around him who had lost the Mike they knew back in November of 1983. Still, something about Mike bothered Will. He had never confirmed that Eleven was dead, and something convinced Will that she wasn't, even though his friends would think he was crazy if he said anything about his hunch. He simply asked Mike why he let the princess die. He wanted to push a bit of hope towards Mike.

The next morning, after he slept over at Mike's house with Dustin and Lucas, he rode his bike back home. He wasn't having a great morning already- he hadn't gotten a wink of sleep the previous night. Will was a very light sleeper, and Dustin? Not so much. Dustin snored louder than a horse, making it impossible for Will to get the silence he needed, and craved, to be able to fall into the trance of sleep. So, instead, Will sat up and rolled his eyes for seven hours straight before changing back out of his pajamas and waking up Mike to tell him that he needed to go home to help his mom with something. Mike just sighed and nodded, but Will could tell he wasn't happy about the conversation they'd had the previous night. Will didn't really care. He just needed to get back to his house. He needed to sleep more than anything.

He nearly crashed his bike when he realized he was basically falling asleep right there on the spot. He biked for a few more minutes, enjoying the summer breeze as it cushioned against his pale skin like warm water in a shower. That's when Will decided to take a relaxing bath when he got home. When he finally arrived, he parked his bike in the front yard and walked inside. He knew Joyce was at work and Jonathan was off with Nancy Wheeler as usual. Of course, all of the boys had pretended not to hear Nancy and Jonathan doing "summer work" upstairs the previous night, and it was kind of awkward between Will and Mike to know that their siblings were screwing, but at least Will had the house to himself. He got into the bathroom, stripped down, and turned on the faucet. He put the drain on lock and stepped into the bath before laying down, feeling the water against his skin. Just like the breeze. 

He didn't realize he had fallen asleep until he woke up in a strange place. He was fully clothed in this place, thank god, and it was weird, though. Just a void, with a watery surface for a "floor". He began to take a step forward before he saw a house in the distance. It was... Mike's house. However, this looked like the Upside Down, and Will was hesitant to go towards it before remembering that he was asleep. So, he proceeded forward and walked in, knocking on the door for some odd reason. "Hello?" He called, his voice cracking lightly from nervousness. He heard something move and flinched before walking up the stairs.

After a few minutes of doing nothing, he heard the wood creak behind him and whipped around to see this ghost of a girl staring back at him through wide brown eyes. He began to tremble after screaming from fright. She moved forward quickly and covered his mouth with her hand. "They will hear!" She warned before Will let the noise die down and she stepped back. "You... you are..." The girl began to guess who he was, but frowned when she realized she couldn't. She seemed puzzled. Will gulped. "I'm, uh... Will... Will Byers." He said awkwardly, fear shining in his hazel eyes. He reached forward to shake her hand. She frowned, looking down at his hand. "You, uh, shake it." He said. The girl caught on and hesitantly took his hand, and he moved up and down once in the "handshake" motion. She awkwardly moved away. She thought for a moment before her eyes widened and she grinned from ear to ear. "WILL!" She shouted, looking more excited than ever. She moved swiftly again and took him into a hug. Will was extremely confused. When she pulled back, she had tears in her eyes. A tear fell and Will saw a sad, crystalline drop of a thousand words. "I... I am... Eleven." She said, struggling to form the sentence. "You... you are safe!" She exclaimed. Will's mouth was wide open. For starters, he just saw ELEVEN, of all people. After that, where the hell was he? Finally, she knew who he was? And was concerned for his safety?!

Eleven was a mess. She had hair down to her shoulders that fell in tangled waves. Her skin was coated in dirt, but it was pale. She had heavy bags under her eyes from a definite lack of sleep, and had a raggedy, pink dress on with a blue flannel. On her legs were a pair of beat up Chucks and ripped white socks with green and yellow stripes at the top. Before he could ask her the thousands of questions on his mind, she began to fade away. Her image blurred, and so did everything around her, before turning into a wisp and floating off. Will found himself screaming her name, waiting for her to respond. That's when he woke up in a cold sweat, still laying in the bathtub. 

He had something to do. So, Will quickly washed himself off, pulled on some clothes, and sat down at his desk as fast as he could. He groaned when he glanced at his clock- he had been out cold, in his bathtub, for four hours. His mother was still at work, but Jonathan was possibly home. Will looked around the house for a minute, opening his brother's door and peeking around the corners before noticing that no, Jonathan definitely was not home. Will ran back into his room, determined to sketch what Eleven looked like before he forgot. He pulled out the fancy colored pencil set he'd gotten for Christmas the past year as well as some paper and his pencil. He began to sketch each feature off of the top of his head before coloring as fast as he could. Once that was over, he decided, why not shade it? So he basically completed an entire art piece after getting quite carried away. He'd show it to the guys, specifically Mike. He had to know if it was really her. 

** July 20, 1985: Everyone (Rightside Up) **

Will, Lucas, Dustin, and Mike were meeting up at Dustin's house that afternoon. It had been about a week since Mike's last campaign. Dustin had deemed it awesome and was proud that Mike had accepted Eleven's death. Lucas had teared up a bit around the whole "dead princess" thing after realizing it was Eleven, and Will? Well, he'd done some things that he was going to ask about. As for Mike, he'd been in quite the funk. He stayed in his room the whole time, barely eating, just thinking about why the hell he let Eleven die. He began to blame himself for it and thought that the whole situation came back to him. If only he hadn't yelled at her one day, if only he hadn't gotten so attached to her, if only he hadn't MET her. He almost felt angry at her, but realized he couldn't.

Then, the doorbell rang. It was Lucas, he was going to bike over to Dustin's with Mike. When he opened the door, Lucas was smiling gently. "Are you okay?" He asked, concerned. "I know you've gotta be going through some shit, man." He said, his smile disappearing. "But we're all really proud of you for writing that. It took guts." Mike nodded. "Yeah, uh... let's go." He said, gulping as he closed the door behind him. He walked towards his bike and Lucas patted him on the back. "But hey, Will says he has something really important to show us. Maybe his mom finally let him buy the tape for Poltergeist after all these years." Lucas said with a chuckle, and Mike smiled lightly. "Yeah, maybe."

The two arrived at Dustin's house a few minutes after Will, who left later since he lived just down the road from the curly haired pudding lover. Dustin and Will had already began making snacks for that afternoon and Will was holding something behind him the most of the time. When Lucas and Mike arrived, Dustin finally questioned it. "Hey, Will, what're you holding?" He asked. Will gulped. "Well, uh, you guys know that I never SAW Eleven, right?" He asked. The three boys in front of him nodded, but Will could see each of them getting uncomfortable at the mentioning of her. Especially Mike, who looked like he was about to break down. Will had no other choice but to show them at that point. "Well, did she look anything like this?" Will asked, pulling out the artwork from behind his back. In the past few years, Will had become immensely better at art, and it was almost realistic. Mike covered his mouth and Dustin and Lucas exchanged a look before seeing and hearing Mike drop into a sprint. 

They followed him, calling his name, to find him sitting against one of the trees in Dustin's front yard, sobbing. The boys left him alone, deciding it was better for Mike to cope on his own than risk making him even more upset, which seemed near impossible at that point. Mike just sobbed to himself for what seemed like hours. Dustin and Lucas were inside, sitting quietly, and Will understood something. Eleven was in the Upside Down. Eleven could be brought back. They could save her. But he didn't want to tell the boys this. It'd be a surprise. He didn't want to get their hopes up, just in case something really was wrong. So, Will had a little plan in motion now.

Every week, he'd lay in the bathtub and wake up to see Eleven. He asked her questions, she asked him questions, and he devised a scheme to get her out of that hellhole. It was going to take more power than they both had if he wanted to get her out now, though. He didn't tell her about the plan either, but he probably should have. Eleven wanted more than anything to get out of the Upside Down and see Mike, Dustin, and Lucas again, but with her current state, she just had to wait a little longer. Still, it was agonizingly long for her. Will just hoped Mike wasn't going to fully accept her death anytime soon. 

** August 5, 1985: Everyone (Rightside Up) **

Of course, Will's plan didn't succeed quite yet. In fact, his plan consisted of having a shelter ready for Eleven for when she had enough strength to come back and asking her every time he got into the bath and visited her if she was strong enough to return in the first place. Most of her answers were "no, I'm not ready yet." Until one day, August 4th, 1985, she answered him with something different: "Almost."

This sparked immense hope in Will, and he was excited to return to school on the 5th. Not everyone else was. Dustin, Lucas, and Mike had been half-dreading it all year. For the boys, it wasn't the homework, boring lectures, or pop quizzes that bothered them, but the bullies and other kids constantly judging them. Now, they were going into their final year of Middle School: 8th grade. According to their parents, it was by far the worst year of Middle School, and everyone was scared. The girls would be getting mean, the boys would be even more annoying, and everyone in general would be stressed. This was the year that Will remembered Jonathan constantly having mental breakdowns in. When Jon was in 8th grade, he'd been so swamped with work that he had about two mental breakdowns a month. Will gulped as he parked his bike.

Walking in, it was the same building. The same tiled floors, the same rusty lockers. Every cinderblock wall was painted just the same, and nothing was out of place. Except the whole school felt different. Now that Will, Mike, Dustin, and Lucas were part of the oldest grade, they wouldn't get picked on by older kids. They could enjoy the "peace" of only having to deal with bullies in their own grades. Older kids tended to be meaner. As for Will, everything was a ticking clock. Eleven's return, the end of Middle School, everything. He wanted to snap his fingers and have everything set in place, but he just couldn't. That was physically and mentally impossible. 

Mike found his locker and stopped by first since it was closest. Luckily, Dustin's locker was two away from Mike's, so they'd be closer together. They were in the same homeroom. Sadly, Lucas and Will were in different ones, without each other, which wasn't ideal. After that, the boys all said goodbye and went to their homerooms to get their schedules, praying that they had some of the same classes. Dustin and Mike got to choose their seats and sat next to eachother. Will ended up next to a girl named Jennifer, and Lucas got to sit next to Max, which was pretty great for him. He and Max had only been on one date, and weren't official, but they both had chemistry, and everybody noticed. 

The first day of school went rather well. Troy was busy bothering new 6th graders and 7th graders while the boys relaxed for once, feeling great to have the pressure off of their backs. They MIGHT actually get a year of freedom from everyone's least favorite human being, Troy Harrington, and his goon sidekick James. Nobody quite understood why James hung out with Troy. He wasn't exactly... smart, though, to put it kindly. 

After biking home, everyone began to work on their homework in peace, enjoying the first day of school.

**August 9, 1985: Max**

After the first week of school that felt like forever, the redhead didn't feel like celebrating, which is exactly what her adopted parents wanted to do. They wanted to have a family dinner with her and her aggressive, teenage dirtbag brother, Billy, to congratulate them. Max wasn't having it. Instead, she walked outside and dragged her feet on the dirt for a while. The Winters household wasn't far from the lake at the bottom of the quarry, which did involve a steep hill to get down and up, and a working car, which thank god they had. Max remembered when Billy tried to run away from home in the past year. He got about a hundred feet up the hill before retiring back down and giving up. Max still laughed about it to that day.

She was minding her own business when she heard something rustling in the bushes. Instinctively, she picked up a decent sized rock that could easily knock someone out if she threw it hard enough. Max walked slowly towards the bushes, preparing to see a rabid raccoon or a serial killer. She pulled the brush back to see a small girl basically passed out, with blood dripping from her ears and nose. Behind her, a tree was closing up, which frightened Max to the extremes. Why the hell was a TREE closing up some kind of... portal?!

She held the rock up defensively and looked down at the girl, who was barely breathing, but looking back up at her. "W-Who are you?!" Max demanded. "D... don't hurt m-me..." The weaker girl rasped, looking up at the redhead through pain-filled eyes. 

It was a quick start to their friendship. When Max asked who to call for the girl, she answered with "Mike... or Lucas... Dustin, or Will." She said, spacing the names out in order to take heavy breaths. Max was glad this girl knew her bundle of nerd friends and was getting ready to call Lucas when the girl looked over at her. "Eleven." She said quietly. Max tilted her head. "Huh?" She asked with confusion tinting her voice. The girl spoke louder. "Eleven. My... name." She said softly. Max tilted her head. "Weird name, but okay." She said. Max was very confused by now. 

Max picked up the phone and dialed Lucas' number. When he answered, she smiled, and El picked up on this. She obviously had some sort of odd feeling for Lucas, for when she mentioned his name before, Max blushed immensely. That's when Eleven decided that Max felt the same way about Lucas that she did about Mike. Because whenever someone mentioned him, Eleven blushed. Max was speaking now. "Hey, um, there's a girl here who says she knows you. She's... bloody. And scared." She said quietly. She heard Lucas suck in a breath. "Did she tell you her name?" He asked, and Max nodded. "Yeah, um... Eleven." she answered. She could hear the phone drop and Lucas yell "I'LL BE THERE IN TWENTY!" Before hanging up. Max was very confused.

After twenty minutes of intense biking to get to Max's house, which was much farther away than anyone else's, Lucas finally arrived. He had his Supercom as well as a compass, and held the compass out as he got closer to the Winters' house. Sure enough, it was moving in the wrong direction, away from true north. He nearly crashed his bike as he sprinted inside, not bothering to knock on the door. Max's parents weren't home anyways. And there she was, sitting on a barstool in the kitchen, wiping blood off of her face. "El!" Lucas exclaimed and ran over to her, taking her into a hug. Both Eleven and Max were very confused about this. Max was feeling slightly jealous, but Eleven was just straight up shocked. "Lu... Lucas." She said, giving him a weak smile. "Oh my god, oh my god... Dustin's gonna lose his shit when he sees you! And Will, too. He drew this weirdly accurate picture of you, and ohMYGOD SHIT MIKE!" He exclaimed, pressing his hands against his head. "Holy shit, Mike's gonna be so happy, El!" He said, smiling widely. Eleven was smiling too at the sound of Mike's name. "Oh, sorry, hey Max." Lucas said after a second, blushing with embarrassment. The whole "Eleven's here" thing fucked with his brain temporarily, making him hot-wired to say whatever was on his mind. 

"Hey, Max, I'll take her back to my place, but you CAN'T tell anyone she was here, okay?" Lucas asked. Max looked around and nodded. "Sure, um, okay." She answered awkwardly, fidgeting with her fingers while Lucas helped the girl off of Max's kitchen counter. She watched the two leave and saw Eleven sitting on the back of Lucas' bike, her arms wrapped around him. She was basically holding on for dear life, but Max was still jealous. She narrowed her eyes and watched them leave, silently hoping they'd fall on their way up the hill, which was very painful to get up. Lucas wasn't focusing on the pain of the incline, though. He was focused on Eleven, sitting on the back of his bicycle, ALIVE.

He went back to his house and helped Eleven clean up, even lending her a pair of his old clothes. A pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, similar to what Mike had lended her when she had first come to his house, that night in the pouring rain. She had used a wash rag to scrub the dirt off of her skin and Lucas even helped her brush her hair out, which took a decent amount of time due to the fact that it wasn't brushed for a while. Since she was so weak, Lucas was letting her sit on his bed since his parents could be home from work at any minute. So, he did what he had to. He took Eleven and biked over to Mike's house as fast as he could. It was a quick and radical decision, but he couldn't have a girl in his house, even if it was El. His parents would kill him.

So, he arrived there quickly, since it was just a minute down the street. He pulled in and helped El off of his bike before running down to the basement while she was leaning against Mike's house for support. He banged against the door a few times, waiting for Mike to answer. He figured he was down there, probably hanging out. As Lucas recalled, Dustin was over at his house, and there was no way Mike wasn't.

**August 9, 1985: Everyone**

Mike heard the banging on his basement door and turned from his seat to see Lucas through the window. He looked over at Dustin. "I'll get it." He said, putting the cards down. The two had been trying to play a card game that Dustin picked up over the summer, but Mike wasn't learning as fast as he thought he would. Dustin nodded. "Okay." He replied, putting his cards down too. He may or may not have sneaked a peek at Mike's cards before the dark-haired boy opened the basement door. "Um, hey, Lucas. Do you need something?" Mike asked. Lucas was grinning from ear to ear. "You're gonna lose your shit when you see who I found." He said. Mike looked over at him, raising an eyebrow. "Hold on a sec." Lucas said before leaving. Mike didn't bother to look around the corner. He probably should have, to prevent from the shock that was about to settle in his system. 

Lucas came around the corner and there she was, wearing an ACDC t-shirt and a pair of blue sweatpants. Mike's eyes widened and he quickly shut the door, pressing his back against it. Outside, Lucas and a very confused Eleven stood there. Dustin stood up after seeing Mike's reaction. "What...?" He asked. Mike's breathing was getting heavy and he looked like he'd seen a ghost before he whipped the door open and nearly tackled Eleven in a hug, which scared the shit out of her. After the initial shock, she hugged him back weakly, but could barely walk. Dustin came out after hearing Eleven's surprised squeak, but he hadn't recognized the voice. He saw her and a smile formed on his face. "Eleven!" He exclaimed, running over and hugging her. Of course, Mike was practically attached to her and didn't seem willing to let go, so Dustin just ended up hugging both of them. Eleven had a few tears running down her face as she smiled and chuckled lightly. 

She was back. That was all that mattered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea what Max's real last name is, but I've seen people use Winters a lot so I'm gonna hop on that bandwagon lol.


	3. Help

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eleven's stay at Hawkins General.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Iknowiknowiknow, "arizona, you had ONE job, post the damn chapter"  
> but i wrote THREE with at least fifty k words in there and my laptop decided to auto update so i lost them... i legit cried for ten minutes and then started writing again. it's not going to be another while until a chapter is up, though, maybe a few days. :)

** August 9, 1985: Everyone **

 

The moment was really setting in. Eleven was back. Mike couldn’t believe his eyes as he held the small girl gently in his arms. It had been almost two years, but she was back, and as he could tell, in bad health. He slowly began to realize she was slipping in and out of consciousness when her grip would repeatedly go limp. Eventually she began to fall backwards, and Mike caught her, cradling her protectively, using himself as a barrier against the nothingness that wanted to take her from him. It had been too long for him to want to let go. Instead, he just stayed there, rubbing her back gently with his thumb, the rest of his hand supporting her to keep her from falling. He wanted to cry when he saw her shoulder-length, tangled, hazelnut waves. Mike found himself gently stroking them with his other hand, tears springing to his eyes in a sudden wave of emotions. The girl who showed up in the rain with a buzz cut and a yellow t-shirt had changed so much. He almost wanted to have touched her shaved head, but he realized now wasn’t the time to be living in the past. She was here. That was all that mattered. Mike was too busy holding Eleven to wipe away the tears that were falling from his dark brown eyes as he smiled against her, pressing his head to the side of her’s. She wasn’t responding, of course. He was laughing as he cried quietly, but he was so caught up in the moment that he didn’t understand what was really going on. If he wanted Eleven to survive, they’d have to act quickly. She didn’t look like she was going to make it unless she got immediate medical attention, but the boys didn’t know how to get her to the hospital. Meanwhile, Will had arrived a few minutes earlier because he was going to join Dustin and Mike that afternoon, but thought he had a doctor's appointment, so he showed up out of the blue and was quite shocked. Dustin had to explain the situation and Will jumped in, ready to help.

 

While Lucas, Dustin, and Will were plotting on how to get Eleven to the hospital, there was also Mike. He was so happy, but so scared. He was terrified that any touch too rough might break her, but anything too gentle wouldn’t be enough for his greedy love. He just wanted to be with her, even if it meant he had to let go after a few minutes. Having her there was enough for part of him, but another part wanted more. He wanted to hold her hand and kiss her, and have her kiss him back. But that would’ve made the moment too sweet. It needed bitterness, and it was here now. The other boys had begun to notice Mike’s inattentiveness and Dustin walked over to him, tapping his shoulder. He barely turned, but Dustin could see the look in his friend’s eyes as he held the petit girl, shielding her from them. Dustin almost didn’t want to speak, but he didn’t have a choice. Eleven was barely breathing, as any human with eyes or ears could tell. Her chest was lightly rising and falling, but he could hear her fast, faint breaths. Mike still wasn’t picking up on this. Everyone was feeling euphoric and happy, but everything was going to go down unless Eleven got out of there. Lucas cleared his throat a few times, and Mike eventually turned his head a little bit more. “Mike, you’ve gotta let go. We gotta get her to the hospital, she’s barely breathing.” He explained, and Mike gulped, a light, uncharacteristic growl rising from his throat. He didn’t want to let go, not at all, but he had to make a tough decision. He laid her onto the ground, cradling her head in his arms to make sure it didn’t touch the ground too hard to cause any more damage. The last thing he wanted was to put Eleven in any more of a bad medical situation. Now, there was one more thing the boys had to figure out. How they were going to call 911. Karen Wheeler was upstairs, in the living room, doing bills. They couldn’t talk on the phone without her hearing, and if she found out that the mysterious girl from 1983 was back, in her basement again, and in dire need of medical attention was going to be in all kinds of trouble.

 

"How the hell do we call an ambulance though?" Will asked. He never cussed, so this was a bit strange to everyone. Dustin's mouth was slightly agape from hearing his friend speak but he closed his mouth and got back to the point.

 

"Either we go to someone else's house, Lucas' since it's closest, or risk it and just call here." He said with a shrug. 

 

Lucas rubbed his chin, hopping into the conversation. "But what about Mike's mom? If she catches us, Mike's fucked. Still, if we don't call soon, we're gonna lose her. It doesn't take an idiot to realize that." He stated, looking over at the other two.

 

Mike looked over at them. "It's worth it. I don't care. Someone go upstairs and call the ambulance. My mom's taking Holly to daycare in a few minutes so she won't be here when the ambulance arrives. Someone needs to distract her while someone else and I stay here and try to keep her alive." He commanded. Dustin and Will were the ones to go upstairs. Dustin was good at distracting Mrs. Wheeler while Will had a voice quiet enough to use the phone without anyone noticing. Meanwhile, Lucas was scampering to the bathroom to get a wet rag to place on Eleven's forehead. She was burning up.

 

Mike sat there, holding her, occasionally squeezing her to try and keep her conscious even though she was drifting away. After a few moments, her eyes opened briefly and he caught her gaze, a smile brightening his stressed face. "El..." He said quietly, rubbing her cheek with his thumb. She began to open her mouth but words wouldn't come out. She was just trying to breathe and raspy, ragged breaths came out instead. Mike hushed her gently. "El, no, don't talk. It's okay. We're going to get you to the hospital. You're going to be okay. Do you hear me? You're going to be okay. T-they're gonna give you medicine, a-a-and uh, food and stuff. But you're gonna be okay." He said quickly, almost hysterically from happiness. Her lips curled into a faint smile and she managed to whisper something before her head dropped again and she fell unconscious. "Promise?" She rasped. Mike was panicking now as Lucas came back with the soaked towel and pressed it against Eleven's forehead.

 

She was dwindling away when the ambulance arrived, but Mike was holding her in his arms when he whispered back the sacred word they shared. "Promise." He said, his voice wavering and breaking. 

 

** Eleven **

 

She couldn't feel anything, just darkness surrounding her as she opened her eyes in what felt like some kind of dream. She saw nothing, just herself. Looking down, she saw the ratty, torn flannel and dress she'd been wearing the whole time. She felt disgusting, like all of her energy had been drained and she was about to be sick. She felt a prick in her arm but didn't see anything there, which was very confusing for her. She didn't know what was going on. El looked around at her surroundings. Nothing had changed, just the darkness and her. At first, she panicked, thinking it was the In Between. It wasn't. The floor wasn't water, so she wouldn't have been in the bath in order to get there in the first place, and there was nothing else there, just her.

 

El could almost here voices, but they were quickly gone, and she was left there, trying to figure out what was happening. She couldn't remember anything, just pain and the Upside Down. So, she thought of what she usually thought of- Mike, Dustin, Lucas, and even Will. She'd seen him in what she thought was a dream. She couldn't tell the difference between dream and reality sometimes, especially in the Upside Down. All she knew right now was pain, and it was getting more present in her body, thought she couldn't tell where or why.

 

** Everyone **

 

Mike had never been the bossy one, as the others realized, but was now commanding that they get Eleven outside to make sure the paramedics could get to her immediately. Karen Wheeler's car was heard leaving the house and everyone sighed with relief, but now they had one problem- Eleven was barely alive. Will had just returned from calling 911, and was looking flustered. "Will- how long until they're here?!" Mike demanded. Will looked around before realizing he was the one who had to answer. "I don't know! It could be like... ten to twenty minutes, depending on traffic." He stated, shrugging quickly. Mike bit his lip. "Fuck." He said under his breath, sighing angrily. He swiftly ran his hand through his hair.

 

It had been the longest five minutes of Mike's life when the ambulance finally arrived. They could hear the sirens and were sitting on the grass outside of Mike's house. Will was pacing, Dustin was constantly checking Eleven's pulse, Mike was cradling her in his arms, and Lucas was practically hyperventilating. Two men hopped out of the ambulance and a woman followed after with a gurney, and Mike hesitantly let go of her as they began to check her vitals.

 

"Move, go, go, go, go, go!" One of the paramedics shouted at the kids, who all moved back quickly. Mike didn't want to, not at all. He crossed his arms while they did their job, and after a few minutes, Eleven had been loaded onto the gurney and was being wheeled back up the small hill and into the ambulance, which was waiting in Mike's driveway. He sucked in a breath and could've sworn he saw her eyes open and look at him, but he wasn't sure. She had an oxygen mask on and he could see another paramedic inside the ambulance preparing an IV. He then realized how bad she really was. Mike looked over the paramedic's shoulder to see Eleven, with pale skin, barely breathing, and the skinniest body he'd ever seen. He'd never seen a creature so malnourished, and it made him so sad and disgusted that she had to go through that. Mike felt his hands ball up into fists, as they usually did when something pissed him off. He made a silent vow not to let her get hurt ever again.

 

Will had been the first one to speak up. "Shouldn't we go after her...?" He asked quietly, the words coming out of his mouth quite slowly. Mike's attention snapped back into place and he nearly smacked his own face. "Oh my god, yeah." He replied awkwardly, beginning to fumble around before running over to where the boys always parked their bikes when they were together. Mike's was in the garage and Dustin's was messily thrown into the grass, along with Lucas', which was on the side of the building thrown over, and Will's was neatly leaning against a tree. They each got on and began to pedal off in the direction of the sirens, which were going to the nearest hospital, which was just outside of Hawkins, luckily. Hospitals seemed to always pick a quiet place to build their centers, even though it was so inconvenient for bigger towns because they were so far away. Luckily, this wasn't the busy one. There was the state hospital, which was two hours away, which was always crowded and absolutely crazy. This hospital? Not at all. It was where Will had gone when he first got back from the Upside Down. He'd stayed there for a week and the boys, as well as Jonathan and occasionally even Nancy, would come and entertain him. 

 

Mike didn't even feel like his lungs were burning up as he biked as fast as he could towards the hospital. He still remembered the route his mother took every day for that week to take him to visit Will since he'd gone there so often during that time. He knew it would take a while, but it was worth it. For Eleven, his sort-of-not-quite-girlfriend. Honestly, he had no idea what they were, and she probably didn't even know what love was, but he did know that he had more important things to worry about. Dustin used to always tease him about how obvious her crush on him had been, and Lucas used to mention that he caught them holding hands in the hallway when they were running from the bad men. Mike always blushed and shook these comments off, and he never took them seriously. But at the same time, he never truly thought about how Eleven might have only been attached to him because she felt like she owed him, and he still wasn't thinking about it now. He had pushed the thoughts into the back of his mind and was thinking about seeing her rosy cheeks and bright smile again.

 

Lucas, on the other hand, felt like his legs were burning. He was pedaling as fast as he could, but Mike was still way ahead of him, and he could tell Dustin and Will were struggling as well. It was funny- Lucas had been the more athletic one in the group. He'd even gone to baseball camp over the summer and got quite toned since 1983, but Mike was out-biking them all. "Wait up, Mike!" He called to the raven-haired boy, mostly for himself, but also for Will and Dustin, who were trailing behind them on the practically empty road. Hawkins had become a bit of a ghost town after the lab was first exposed lightly and then left after blocking any more press, and Mike didn't even realize that some of his own neighbors had been "bad men". Most of the families that left wanted to go somewhere that still had even a shroud of innocence left, which Hawkins definitely didn’t. It was clouded and tainted now, with sins committed by the government. He saw widowed women take their children and leave the state, even, and he could almost remember familiar faces from the hallways of Hawkins Middle School on that fateful night. It made him so angry- these people lived normal everyday lives that they didn't deserve. Now, seeing cars driving down the Hawkins roads was more rare, and the boys were practically the only ones there.

 

Dustin felt like his lungs were being clawed open by Satan as he struggled to keep up. At least he wasn't in the back, he kept telling himself. However, he gave himself the excuse of slowing down that 'Will couldn't be left behind', but also that he needed to rest from time to time. He was panting like a dog and could hear Will wheezing out his breaths, so he slowed down and let the other boy catch up. "Will, man, use your inhaler." He suggested, and Will nodded, wheezing again. Dustin still remembered when Will first got back. He'd been given an inhaler, and used it quite often. While his mental health took some damage, his physical health took more. He'd never told anyone about his slugs, but Dustin had accidentally walked in on him coughing one up, and the two agreed not to speak of it ever again. Dustin felt a shiver creeping over his spine.

 

Will's wheezing was getting progressively worse. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his inhaler, taking two large puffs. He wished the medicine took less time to kick in, because he really needed it. More than that, he wanted Mike to slow the hell down so he could legitimately breathe. He could tell Dustin and Lucas were also struggling, and he had no idea why Mike wasn't dying from this biking, because he could always remember in PE when Mike could barely run a lap before beginning to wheeze. Will chuckled a little bit as he thought about how much everyone had grown up.

 

They arrived at the hospital around an hour after they left, and parked their bikes out front. Mike didn't, though. He threw his bike against the pavement and sprinted into the hospital, the automatic doors barely opening before he dashed through them. Dustin sighed and ended up parking the bike for him as the others caught their breath, and walked in more calmly, but with quite a bit of speed to their stride. They walked in to find a nurse lecturing Mike, possibly- no, definitely, on not running in the emergency room. Lucas, Will, and Dustin caught up to him and the three managed to calm him down before he said something stupid, because Mike looked like he was about to absolutely roast the nurse. Mike was known for getting incredibly petty when he was agitated enough, and nobody could forget the one time he gave Troy a form-fitting opinion while they were in 7th grade. It had been extraordinarily hilarious in contrast from the usual jokes they had, and Mike even had to go to the principal's office to have a heart-to-heart about bullying.

 

Lucas cleared his throat and spoke up. "Do you know where a certain patient is staying? She has brown hair to her shoulders and really pale skin... she was kind of dying a few minutes ago..." He tried to explain. The hospital didn't have any information on her, so they couldn't just ask for a name. The nurse sighed. "We have a lot of people like that." She drawled. "But I'm not going to make this hell for you. If you're talking about a young girl, around your age, she's in room five. Take a left around the corner and you'll see it on the right side of the hallway." She explained. Mike let out a breath he didn't know he was holding and began to jog before the nurse yelled after him. "God damnit, I just told you not to run!" She said, exasperated. Mike didn't listen, he really didn't care. When he was around the corner, he sprinted to the room and basically threw the door open, and his jaw dropped.

 

Someone was already there. His nightmare was coming true. Someone had found Eleven, and was probably trying to take her away from him... again. Mike was so afraid it was one of the "bad men" and was honestly ready to fight the guy. He didn't want anyone to hurt Eleven or take her away from him, ever again. In fact, he wanted to get this dude out of the room as fast as possible if he was a threat to anyone, especially her. But what he didn't really understand was who was sitting in the chair until his face turned. Mike was frozen in his place, in the doorframe, and eventually, Lucas, Dustin, and Will showed up, equally as confused when they saw the man sitting there like nothing abnormal was happening. Mike's mouth was slightly open as he realized who it was.

 

Chief Hopper cleared his throat. "Hello, boys." He said, looking back at the papers in his lap. Mike looked over at the others before looking back at the Chief. "No offense, but, uh, what are you doing here?" A voice peeped. It was Dustin. Hopper chuckled, which was extremely rare. Even Will had learned that, and Hopper had been hanging around his house for a long time after the incidents of November 1983. "Filling out papers. I got a call from a confused girl. She was too curious. Listen, here's the plan. She's staying with me. None of you say a word to ANYONE that she's back, okay? If you do, you know they WILL find out somehow and they'll be back for her faster than you can say 'wait." Hopper explained. Lucas mentally cursed himself for basically giving Max a peek at El's story. In fact, he shouldn't have made the whole thing sound so dramatic. Max lived for drama, in and out of school. Will peeped up this time. "Who's they?" He asked curiously. Hopper turned to him. "The people who had her for the first twelve years of her life. Hawkins Department of Energy." He said, turning back to his papers. Will felt like he was going to be sick. That was the place he had been going to receive treatments in 1984. His mother had lied. Hopper didn't seem to know this, but he was filling out medical paperwork like nobody's business. 

 

Mike had pulled up a chair next to her hospital bed and sighed lightly as he finally sat down. "Hey, Chief, she's gonna be okay, right?" He asked, fidgeting nervously with his hands in his lap. Hopper nodded. "Yeah. she's not going to wake up for another hour or so, though. They had her on a ton of medications and almost lost her, but she's a fighter... and probably tired as hell." He said, trying to keep the wavering tone out of his voice as he remembered Sarah. He'd arrived a few minutes after he'd gotten a call from a confused girl and knew she'd be at the hospital due to her condition. So, he went with his gut and sped down to the hospital before making up a story about how she was his daughter. He'd gotten there and seen the paramedics giving her CPR and even shocking her chest, and it made him tear up a little bit. He had remained calm though, and was now filling out medical bills that he could barely afford. But there were more papers he needed to get, not now, but later. He wanted to adopt Eleven.

 

It was a strange and rash decision that he'd made in the past hour, but he knew the girl was kind. She was a fighter, too. He knew for a fact that he couldn't let her go to a family beside any of the ones who already knew about her, so he decided to take her in himself. He knew Joyce couldn't handle a third child, and obviously some of the other families barely knew about her. He knew that Karen knew, but the way the Wheeler kid looked at Eleven made him know for a fact that he couldn't have them living under the same roof. He wasn't really attached to her yet, but Hopper could tell that he would be soon. She seemed so gentle, yet so powerful, and Hopper already knew he was signing up for the ride of his life.

 

Another five hours passed before Eleven began to stir. Mike had stayed awake the whole time. Hopper had gone to get some other papers that nobody really knew about and the other boys had to call their parents with the excuse that they were "sleeping over" and were going to go biking and go to the diner. Of course, their parents bought it. Most of them trusted their children now, and even Karen Wheeler had agreed to let Mike hang out with them, even if it was after dark at that point. The Chief was in a good enough mood to give the boys some money so they could go get some of the hospital food, but Mike refused to leave Eleven's bedside for a second time. Dustin, Lucas, and Will were all in the cafeteria and Hopper was off doing god-knows-what when he saw her eyes open.

 

"El..." He said quietly, sitting up and scooting his chair closer to her side. A very confused Eleven turned to see him and her mouth opened with surprise. "M... Mike?" She asked quietly, reaching up and rubbing her head, which hurt like hell. She felt like she'd defeated three demogorgons and was currently having the worst migraine of her life. She winced, and Mike cringed after realizing he'd caused her to sit up and that he'd caused this pain. He stood up and walked over, gently guiding her back down. "It's okay, just rest. I don't know what really happened, but Lucas showed up and said you found a way home. You passed out a couple times and the Chief said you almost died, but you're okay now. You came back to me, El." He said softly, meeting her pain-filled but still happy gaze. She smiled faintly and he reached out, taking her hand in his. "You came back to me." He repeated, feeling warm tears forming in the corners of his eyes. He laced his fingers with hers and suddenly heard three loud boys running around the corner. El groaned as the noise enhanced her headache and Mike reluctantly let go of her hand to go outside of the door and shush the boys snappishly. 

 

After a second, Mike returned and sat down beside Eleven, who looked confused and even a little bit scared of what was coming around the corner. First, she saw Dustin's head peek over the door and she saw a wide smile come to his face before he quietly tried to run over to her. Lucas followed, his expression brightening as well, and lastly, Will came out. Eleven was smiling weakly as she greeted everybody with a quiet 'hello' and Will came over to the side opposite of Mike. Lucas had gone over with the freckled boy and Dustin and Will were on the other side. "Hello, Eleven." He said softly. 

 

"Hi, Will." She responded. Nothing could've taken their happiness away from them in that moment, and Mike felt his heart swell with pride as she smiled gently at them. But at the same time, he could feel his heart beating out of his chest. He hadn’t really thought about certain things, like his feelings for Eleven. He knew they were there, but he didn’t know what to say, how to process them, or anything. After all, he was only fourteen. 

 

Of course, nobody stopped to think about the time. It was pretty late and even Hopper was starting to yawn outside. Mike saw him peek around the corner a few times but he never came in. A nurse did, though, a few moments later. “Alright, visiting hours are over. And you, young man,” She said, pointing at Mike. “No running in the goddamned hallway!” She finished harshly, leaving Mike to flush red. Everyone broke into laughter at that point and Mike could even hear Hopper chuckling in the hallway as he saw him slip a five dollar bill to the nurse. Probably for her keeping quiet about Eleven being there. Even so, she was giggling a bit before she started to wheeze and Mike whipped his head down to make sure she was okay before he saw the nurse walk back in and shoo them all out.

 

He never felt happier as he biked home. Mike felt like he was walking on air, even though he was really biking on pavement and going slightly uphill, too. Lucas, Dustin, and Will were coming with him to his house and they were all going to get some things together for Eleven to entertain herself with while she was in the hospital. Everyone remembered when Will was there- he ranted about how boring it was for a solid two weeks after he got out. Apparently non-visiting hours were the worst. Mike couldn’t even imagine how Eleven felt. It had been one thing when Will was there, he felt bad about leaving him but wanted to stay. With Eleven, he felt compelled to stay there. He didn’t want to leave at all, and felt like he was a magnet being pulled away from a pole. She was the pole, pulling him closer, and he was trying so hard to move away, but he was just getting sucked back towards her. He didn’t mind falling back at all.

 

Mike, Lucas, Will, and Dustin came inside after they got to Mike’s house and Karen didn’t even question why the four boys were home so late. “How was the diner?” She asked after coming to make sure they were all getting ready for bed. Mike cleared his throat. “It, uh, it was okay. There were some pretty good milkshakes but Dustin’s was apparently horrible.” He lied. Mike was great at lying and storytelling, hence why he was the Dungeon Master and why the others were always on the edge of their seats to hear his campaigns. Karen smiled. “Ah, well, I’ll see you boys in the morning. Good night.” She replied while she closed Mike’s door. The Wheeler boy sighed lightly as he heard her footsteps echoing down the hall.

 

The next morning was fast. Mike woke up Dustin, Lucas, and Will early and they made a few get well cards for Eleven. The girl didn’t even know what they were, but nonetheless, Mike insisted on it. He wanted her to feel as good as she could while she was in the hospital, and couldn’t wait until he could get to see her alone. He didn’t mind having the other boys around, but there were some times that he just couldn’t have them with him. Besides, they’d had some of their best moments without the others. Mike never forgot about that kiss in the cafeteria or all those opportunities he’d had while she was staying in his house. If only he’d gotten his feelings out sooner, maybe she would’ve understood. They could’ve enjoyed that period. But at the same time, Mike knew she didn’t get it. She didn’t have her own feelings sorted out, and he knew he’d have to explain things to her.

 

While Will and Dustin were trying to figure out how to use the glitter glue they’d found in the box of arts and crafts supplies in the basement, Mike was heading upstairs to grab some things. He’d packed the necessities: Star Wars tapes, a puzzle book, the cards he and Lucas had made, and even some flowers he’d picked outside for Eleven. There was just one more thing he needed… well, two. Courage, of course, and eggos. While Mike felt comfortable around her as her friend, he felt like a limp noodle when he thought about her romantically, which was most of the time. She made him feel like jello and he absolutely loved it.

 

After Dustin and Will finished their cards, they stashed them in Mike’s backpack and came upstairs to join him and Lucas for breakfast. Family meals weren’t really a thing in the Wheeler house anymore, it was just Mike coming downstairs to occasionally grab something and Nancy picking leftovers out of the fridge. Karen still sat down every morning with Holly to eat, and Ted seemed to grab some food on the way to work, so he wasn’t really there either. Ted had distanced himself from the family slowly but surely, and it was starting to annoy Karen.

 

Mike sometimes pretended not to hear his parents arguing, but it was hard. They did it all the time. They’d argue for hours on end and then his mother would go upstairs and his father would sleep in the La-Z-Boy after drinking three or more beers to take the edge off. He would always swallow the lump in his throat and pretend he didn’t know what was going on, but he always knew. Sometimes, in the basement, he could feel the floor shake upstairs when his mother would stomp her foot against the ground, which she did when she was angry.

 

He wasn’t thinking about that now, though. He was grabbing the eggos and wrapping them up in Saran Wrap as well as getting one for himself. Lucas had an apple and Dustin and Will made eggs quickly before they all biked back to the hospital. Little did they know, a curious Nancy had come down the stairs and had heard a conversation they had.

 

“Mike, your mom can’t hear us, right?” Dustin asked.

 

Mike nodded. “Nope, she’s still asleep. It’s like seven o’clock. She usually wakes up at nine thirty to take Holly to daycare.” He replied.

 

Lucas looked around. “I just can’t believe she’s back. I mean really, who would’ve thought? It’s been like two years.” He said, rubbing his head. 

 

Will smiled. “Yeah, I know. I’m just glad I got to meet her. I always felt like I would see her some day, in reality I mean, and it’s just so crazy.” He stated.

 

Mike sighed lightly. “If we want to get to the hospital, we better go. I want to be there as soon as visiting hours open.” He said, a slight giddy tone in his voice.

 

Dustin chuckled. “Well, don’t rush yourself. She’s probably going to be asleep. She did just open a gate between two dimensions, so she’s probably exhausted.” 

 

Mike sighed again. “Yeah, you’re right.”

 

“I know I am.”

 

Nancy was biting her lip. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Chances are, there was only one person they could’ve possibly been talking about, and that was Eleven. She remembered the girl, of course. Eleven was impossible to forget. She had buzzed brown hair and the saddest eyes Nancy had ever seen. Nancy remembered when Eleven had screamed and cried after seeing Barb’s body and gulped lightly. Nancy could never forget finding out her best friend had died. She’d become closer to someone else though, and that was none other than Jonathan Byers. The two were… sort of friends. She and Steve weren’t really a thing anymore, but she occasionally snuck around with Jonathan from time to time. Neither of them were ready to make things official though.

 

Nancy snapped back into reality when she heard the door close. She remembered where the boys said they were going- the hospital. She ran upstairs as fast as she could and threw on some clothes before quickly leaving the house and hopping into her mother’s old station wagon which she had given Nancy permission to use when she’d gotten her license. The young girl sped down the road and prayed her brother and his friends didn’t see her face as she drove past them.

 

Nancy arrived before the boys but made sure to stay outside. She was going to wait until they got there, had a few minutes with Eleven, and did whatever else they needed to do before she came in and busted their asses from keeping secrets from her. She saw the boys approach the hospital and put their bikes neatly in the rack before locking them up. A light grin spread across her face. She was going to make Mike regret not telling her Eleven had returned. As a friend, Nancy would’ve never toyed with Mike’s emotions. But as a sister, involving a government fugitive, who also happened to have fucking superpowers, and as an OLDER sibling, Nancy was about to make Mike’s life a living hell for ten seconds. She watched him practically skip inside and then decided not to. She wasn’t about to let her brother’s happiness go from a ten to a negative three. He was too happy.

 

Mike waited at the front desk before the woman finally let him go to Eleven’s room. He saw the Chief sitting outside, asleep in his chair. Dustin snorted. “He’s still here?” He’d remarked when they all saw him and Mike shrugged before entering El’s room. He saw her lying there, still and peaceful as she slept. He sat down in a chair and Will sat on the other side. Lucas sat next to Will and Dustin had to go get another chair from the hallway, almost waking the Chief up in the process. He dragged it in and of course, caused El to stir and Mike to stare daggers into him. He gulped as Eleven opened her eyes.

 

She looked at the boys for a moment before smiling. “Hi.” She said quietly. Mike’s heart lurched at the sweet tone of her voice before he pulled out his backpack. “Hey, El.” He said quietly in return. “We, uh, brought you some stuff.” He began. Dustin finished. “Yeah, because Will told us how much being in the hospital sucked.” He joked. Eleven didn’t get it but laughed a little bit anyways. Mike could tell she was a bit uncomfortable, but he didn’t know why.

 

Eleven was uncomfortable, though. She didn’t know how she was supposed to fit in anymore. The boys had all changed so much, but being in a toxic environment made her growth stop almost completely. Her hair and face had changed a little bit, but it was like her body shrunk. She was bony and almost skeletal and just as short as she had been. Even so, with personality, Eleven knew things would be different. The boys seemed to be different, and she could barely talk, so things would be harder for her. Eleven didn’t know how to voice things. She had all the thoughts in her head, but none of them would come out. She just wished she could say what she was thinking, because there were a million things she’d say. She wanted to know what blank was or why blah happened, and she didn’t even know how to ask. Eleven felt like she made the boys look bad, too. She’d heard the nicknames they’d had at school. She knew she was talked about behind her back. She learned that lesson the time she stole eggos from a supermarket. People commented everything- her outfit, her face, especially her hair. Nobody knew who she was but everyone knew her face after that. If only it had changed with her personality.

 

If anything, Eleven was more shy. She didn’t want to open up to anyone right now except for Mike, Dustin, Lucas, and Will. Those were the only people she was truly willing to talk to. That was, until she saw Nancy peeping her head around the corner. Nancy was another friendly face. Eleven had completely forgotten who was talking to her or what he was saying, but was locking gazes with the blue-eyed sister of Mike. She slowly stepped around the corner and seemed to forget that she had been hiding. “Hi, Eleven.” Nancy said in an almost whisper.

 

“Hi.” El said quietly. Mike almost jumped when he saw his sister. Dustin looked confused and was wondering why the hell Nancy was here. Lucas was awkwardly fidgeting his hands and trying to come up with an excuse in his head before Nancy asked any kind of question about why they were there or why Eleven was. Will? Well, he had no idea what he was doing, but for some reason he was inching towards Eleven as if to protect her. Mike seemed to be doing the same thing. Mike was practically holding her hand at that point while Will seemed to be shielding her. He moved over a little bit when he noticed Eleven staring up at Nancy through happy eyes. He didn’t know that Nancy knew about Eleven, so his instinct was to protect her. 

 

“Oh my god…” Nancy said quietly before doing a little run over to the hospital bed and giving Eleven a small hug. The girl wheezed into Nancy’s shoulder when she was lifted up slightly and Nancy gasped and put her back down. “Oh, god, sorry!” She muttered, biting her lip. “I’m… you’re… wow.” she said softly. Mike was feeling a bit jealous. Eleven was back and his nosy sister had gotten to hug her before he had. He blinked and rolled his eyes a bit. Nobody noticed, which he was thankful for. Mike wasn’t really known to be sassy unless he was jealous.

 

Eleven was smiling up at Nancy who was doing the same thing. “You… how’d you get back?” She asked, confused. Eleven opened her mouth as she tried to put what she was thinking into words. “I… opened gate.” She said, struggling to form the sentence. “But demogorgon is dead.” She said slowly. Nancy had forgotten about the demogorgon completely. She remembered fighting it with Jonathan Byers and Steve Harrington in her living room for a moment before coming back to the present. 

 

The nurse had rounded the corner. “Five visitors at a time!” She reminded the boys before scurrying off. Hopper, the boys, and Nancy made six. They were only one person over. Mike had the urge to call the lady a “bedswerving, hooker-looking shit-eating wanker” but decided to keep that in his own head just because El was there and he didn’t want to make a scene. He did know one thing, and that was that he sure as hell wasn’t about to volunteer to leave the room. Surprisingly enough, Nancy did.

 

“Oh, I should go. Mom doesn’t know I left. I’ll tell her you guys went to go hang out by the lake or something.” Nancy said, hurrying off. Dustin turned to Mike. “Dude, your sister’s kind of cool again.” He said with a shrug. Mike rolled his eyes. “Yeah right.” He huffed lightly. 

 

** August 11, 1984: Mike and Eleven **

 

While the other boys were off on their own that day, Mike was on his way to the hospital to see El. He brought her some more flowers that he actually took the time to buy and was feeling good about things. When he got to the hospital, something seemed up. It was way too quiet and he didn’t see Hopper in the hallway. That was until he rounded the corner and saw him inside, seemingly having a nice conversation with Eleven. Mike didn’t want to interrupt, so he stayed outside and decided to sit down in the chair beside her door.

 

Hopper was talking about adoption. Mike realized this after a few minutes.

 

“Listen, kid, this sounds weird but I’m going to be your new guardian. That basically means I take care of you. So you’ll come live with me at my house and I’ll get you into school and stuff. I haven’t done this kind of thing in a while so I may not be the best at it, but I want you to understand that I’m not gonna let anything hurt you, okay?” Hopper said, a new kind of softness in his voice as he talked to the tiny girl in the hospital be before him. That Sunday afternoon meant many changes in everyone’s hearts.

 

El nodded and took in what he was saying. “Okay.” She repeated after him. “What… about Mike?” She asked, a tint of worry clouding her voice. She didn’t know if living with Hopper meant she wouldn’t be able to see Mike and the other boys, and that worried her deeply. They were her friends, and more importantly, they were her family. Hopper chuckled. “You can always see him. Lucas, Dustin, and Will, too. As long as there’s no funny business.” He scolded lightly. El tilted her head. “Funny business?” She repeated, questioning what it meant. Hopper smiled. “I’ll explain all of these things to you soon. We just need you to get better. Whatever you did screwed with your insides big time. You’ll be recovering for a while. Good news is, the nurse says you’ll be out of the hospital in another day and then I’ll take you back to my house.” He said. El nodded. “Okay.” She said softly.

 

Mike was too scared to go in and interrupt the moment, so he just sat outside. He was grinning like an idiot for the next twenty minutes, before Hopper walked outside to go to the cafeteria and Mike walked in to give El the bouquet he’d gotten for her. She’d received it with a smile and a light blush covering her cheeks, which gave Mike the courage to sit down and ask her a couple questions.

 

“Hey, El?” He asked. The girl looked up from her hand, which she’d been picking at her nails for a few moments. “Yes, Mike?” She asked, the same softness in her voice that she’d had two years prior. “Do you know what love is?” He asked. El shook her head. “No…?” She said with a bit of question in her voice. “Oh…” Mike said quietly.

 

He couldn’t be the one to teach her about that. He couldn’t. Mike honestly didn't want to tell her about the strange happenings of love and really just wanted to avoid telling her how he felt if there was a risk of her not reciprocating his feelings. That was his main concern. Instead of continuing the discussion, he scooted over to her side and decided to change the subject. “So, have you gotten to watch any of the Star Wars tapes, yet?” He asked with a little grin as he looked over to meet her gaze. 

 

She shook her head. “Couldn’t leave.” She replied and Mike decided that meant she wasn’t allowed to get out of her bed. Apparently something bad had happened and she’d had more damage than the doctors thought so she was going to be coming back to the hospital at least once a month to get checked on, kind of like Will, except not for slugs or anything like that. For now, she was bedridden until the nurse finally decided to clear her. Eleven had to have multiple IVs to try and give her the nutrients she needed to even be able to walk again, and apparently the next step would have her in a wheelchair for another week or so. It would take a while before she fully recovered from the Upside Down. Mike was yet to understand what exactly happened biologically to her body, but for now he knew she was a bit fucked up.

 

Mike smiled sympathetically. “Okay, well… want to watch one now?” He asked. Eleven’s eager nod made him chuckle a little bit. “It must get boring, huh?” He asked. Eleven nodded again and smiled slightly. Mike got up and proceeded to find the tape on El’s bedside table next to the vase with the flowers he’d given her. He pushed it into the small player in the side of the room and sat back by El’s side after pressing the play button on the console. The hospital television was tiny, but nonetheless, Mike knew he had to make use with what he was given.

 

To Mike’s contempt, El absolutely loved Star Wars. She loved the way the lightsabers worked, was amazed by Princess Leia, and felt strangely relatable for once when she saw Yoda using the force. She remembered Mike showing her his Yoda action figure in his room and looked over at him. He wasn’t even concentrating on the movie- just staring right back at her. He had been for a while, but El had been too absorbed in the magical world of Star Wars to notice. She gave him a little half smile and he did the same before they both chuckled and turned their heads towards the screen. As the movie continued, El found her hand inching towards Mike’s, and he found himself doing the same thing.

 

They held hands for the rest of the movie.

 

** August 15, 1985: Eleven **

 

She was completely and utterly bored with nothing whatsoever to do. She’d admittedly watched the Star Wars movies over three times in a row and was starting to get better with her speech after she heard the characters talking. She’d been picking up on speech and language a lot more now that she was finally immersed in it after being isolated in the Upside Down for so long. It made her feel better knowing that she was going to be able to fit in someday in the Rightside Up, and talk with the boys instead of only listen.

 

Eleven had been quite confused for the past hour, though. A doctor had come inside to talk to her but she didn’t really understand what he was saying. He was using words like “sternum” and “ventricle” as well as weird ones like “neurological functioning” and “reproductive organs”, but Hopper had been there with her and seemed to get what the doctor was explaining. Eleven just nodded through everything and picked up on a few words here and there, but didn’t really get it for the most part. What perplexed her even more was the grave look on Hopper’s face. He seemed nervous and upset. The doctor even apologized after he left.

 

He came back in then, though. Eleven was surprised to look up and see the friendly face of the man as he looked down at her. “Well, Miss Hopper, I’m happy to say we’re going to release you now. A nurse is going to help you into your wheelchair and we’re giving you some medications to help you get better. You’re going to have to come back next month for a check up and a few more times after that so we can be sure that you’re okay, but be sure to avoid the power plant from now on.” He said before the nurse came into the room. Eleven realized she was going home and smiled softly. 

 

Hopper had also finished the adoption papers. They’d taken two days to get there and he had to go to court and everything, and cleaned the shit out of his house for the inspector to go through it, and also for El to come home to a nice place. He’d chosen the name ‘El Hopper’ because he didn’t think she wanted to go by anything else. She’d always be Eleven, but nobody else could know about her. There were only a few people who were allowed to call her Eleven now, and they were all within five miles of the hospital.

 

Not only did he do that, Hopper also had to make up a story. He said that the family she used to live in had abandoned her and she took refuge by a nuclear power plant on mistake, which caused the damage in her body. Nobody could know the toxic, radioactive damage done to Eleven was from the Upside Down, or the press would be back in a heartbeat, as well as the government lab. Hopper wasn’t sure if they were even still in business somewhere else, but he knew they’d come back to Hawkins if they found out that their most important experiment was not only alive, but thriving. For now, she was just managing to get by, though. She was still in the fight or flight survival mode, and would be like that until her body calmed down. She knew it was going to be a rocky road.

 

El was being wheeled down the hallway when she saw Mike round the corner to come visit her again. He tilted his head lightly and smiled as he walked over to her. “Good afternoon, Chief. Hi, El.” He said softly. El smiled up at him. “Hi, Mike.” She replied quietly. The Chief cleared his throat. “Afternoon, Wheeler. El just got cleared.” He stated. Mike nodded, his smile brightening. “That’s great! D’you think I could come over later with the boys? They wanted to show her something.” He asked meekly. The Chief would’ve normally said no about twelve times to everything in that sentence but he looked down at El, who was looking up at him, and couldn’t refuse those eyes. “Oh alright.” He said after a moment, sighing. “But if anything happens to her, I’ve got a shotgun in the closet.” He said, half-joking. He saw Mike’s face turn pale before Hopper chuckled lightly. “Relax, Wheeler. I’m only joking.” He reassured and the boy let out a relieved sigh. “Here, come with us. I’ll drive you home.” Hopper said, smiling.

 

The car ride to Mike’s house wasn’t bad. El was feeling fine in the middle. Hopper’s truck had three seats and they were all in the front, and there wasn’t too much space. Her wheelchair was folded up in the bed of the truck and Hopper was cruising down the street lightly, pretending not to notice his newly-official daughter holding Mike Wheeler’s hand. Although he knew he’d never be her real father, and he didn’t even know who her real father was, he was sure as hell going to try. The two had bonded quite a bit during El’s time at the hospital: he taught her the basics of poker and how to hold a great poker face, which was easy for El yet extremely hard for Hopper, and he even told her a few dad jokes he’d been saving in the back of his mind since Sarah was still around. He used to tell her jokes all the time, especially when she was feeling sick in the hospital, and they'd always brighten her day. Eleven was no different. When she’d be looking and feeling weak and even heaving into a trash can because of how much pain she was in, Hopper would hold her hair back and bring her a napkin before a nurse ran in and he’d tell her jokes to distract her from how awful she felt. Although she looked like she was going through hell, and he knew she was, he felt oddly proud and satisfied that he was able to make her smile even if only for a few seconds. Hopper felt like she deserved to smile every day for the rest of her life, and he didn’t feel like that about a lot of people.

 

After getting lost in his thoughts, he realized he had almost missed the turn into Mike’s driveway. Hopper watched as Mike opened up the door and said goodbye to El, getting his bike out of the truck bed and heading back. He watched as El sighed and scooted over since Mike was no longer beside her. Hopper smiled a little bit. “Ready to go home, El?” He asked with a soft voice. Eleven nodded. “Yes.” 

 

** August 19, 1985: Eleven **

 

El Hopper was feeling terrible. It was another one of those days that she’d had in the past few weeks where she wanted to cry from how much pain was raging inside of her body. Random migraines, muscle spasms, full body contractions, and even absent seizures were driving El insane. Today she was feeling particularly awful as she vomited into the trash can beside her. She heard a knock on her door and expected it to be Hopper with news about the boys or a chat he wanted to have, but when she weakly said “come in”, she didn’t expect it to be Mike, Lucas, Dustin, and Will. She gave them a weak smile before quickly turning away and vomiting again. The boys frowned after that.

 

“Jesus, El, are you okay?” Dustin asked, looking concerned.

 

Will sighed. “Oh, god, sorry.” He said. “This happened to me too, but only for a few days. Her body is getting used to the atmosphere I think.” He tried to explain.

 

Mike shook his head. “No… I think her body’s rejecting the atmosphere.” He said as he sat on the other side of her on her bed. El’s room wasn’t large and it wasn’t fancy. It was a small room with a bed in the middle, a desk on one side, and a wardrobe on the other that Hopper had put together for her. Hop had asked Mike what Eleven’s favorite color was and promptly painted the wardrobe a shade of blush pink, which suited El perfectly. Still, she was heaving again and Mike frowned as he saw her hands digging into the side of the plastic trash bin she was holding on to. Everyone was getting more concerned now because El was making weird noises.

 

“Did, uh, did this happen to you when you came back?” Lucas asked Will.

 

He shook his head. “I mean, I was in pain, but not this much. I was probably a six on a scale of one to ten. El looks like she’s a seventeen.” Will replied.

 

All hell broke loose then. Eleven began to gag again and Mike reached over to hold her hair back for her while she leaned forwards. But this time, she didn’t throw up food. Mike’s eyes widened when he saw blood coming from her mouth. Just as soon as it had happened, El lost her grip on consciousness and fell back onto the bed, her entire body seizing. Mike began to panic and tried to hold her still while Lucas sprinted into the other room to get Hopper.

 

All of a sudden, the seizure stopped. Mike reached up to push some hair out of El’s face and stroke it gently when he touched her neck to check her pulse.

 

She wasn’t breathing.

 

Eleven wasn’t breathing.


	4. Survivor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> El's recovery.

** August 19, 1985 **

Hopper looked up from the newspaper he’d been reading as he heard a struggled cry coming from Eleven’s room. Panic spread throughout his body and he felt his veins turn to ice. He immediately sprung to his feet from instinct and sprinted in, throwing the newspaper onto the ground in the process, leaving the pages littered around on the floor, which he’d just cleaned a few days prior. Just as he got inside, he saw Dustin about to run out and possibly get him, and he saw Mike holding onto El like the world was going to end, repeating the words Hopper didn’t want to hear more than anything.

“She’s not breathing, she’s not breathing, she’s not breathing…” Mike repeated, hyperventilating eventually as his eyes continued to dart around the room. “Get him out of here!” Hopper commanded and he saw Dustin and Lucas’ eyes both snap towards him. Dustin gulped and Lucas hesitantly tried to pull Mike away from Eleven to get him to the other room, but he wasn’t going willingly. He felt hot tears going down his cheeks as he just gave up, walking with them to the living room. Dustin had his arm around him and Lucas was trying to talk sense into him, but it was going in through one ear and out of the other. Dustin was rubbing his back. “It’s gonna be okay, man, Hopper’s gonna get an ambulance, she’s gonna be okay.” He was saying. Mike couldn’t tell if Dustin was trying to assure himself or the others, but it didn’t seem to be working. Lucas seemed to be talking to himself as well. “She’s been through too much to give up now…” He muttered quietly, fidgeting his hands in his lap to keep himself distracted. Mike’s eyes were glazed slightly as tears fell from his eyes and he felt the familiar lump rising in his throat. He couldn’t lose her, not now. Even when she was in the Upside Down, he’d had hope that she was alive, but she could’ve just died right in front of him, and that was something Mike couldn’t handle even thinking about. Mike’s head lowered and he let out a strangled sob as he heard Hopper and Will moving around rapidly, his freckle dappled cheeks reddening as his tears fell.

Hopper had let Will stay, simply because he was the calmest of the group and had been through similar. The boy, however, was pacing and anything but calm and prepared to save a life. He’d never had something like this happen, and he was looking at Hopper as the older man frantically felt around her neck, his fingers moving sloppily, to try and find a pulse. “Shit… SHIT!” He yelled, throwing his hands into the air. Will came over. “Hop, CPR.” He reminded, and Hopper turned to him quickly. “Okay… okay. I’m going to do chest compressions. Go to her face and I’m gonna need you to close her nostrils. When I say “now”, you’re going to breathe into her mouth, okay?” Hopper asked, looking like he was trying to calm himself down while a little tear was sliding down his cheek. ‘Come on, kid!’ He thought desperately. Will was nodding and preparing to help him with the CPR, pressing her nostrils tightly shut. Hopper gulped and began to do chest compressions, counting to himself the numbers over and over again in his head. “NOW!” Hopper yelled and watched as Will pinched Eleven’s nostrils and breathed into her mouth. She didn’t respond. Hopper began again, trying to count desperately. Time passed and finally, he was ready. “NOW!” He spoke, and Will did it again. They did it again. And again. Will was crying a little bit and Hopper was shedding another silent tear. “Byers, come on, now!” He yelled. Will gulped and breathed, figuring there was no use in trying, but he had to do it for the Chief. “Hop, she’s gone…” He said quietly as he came up before hearing a cough and a gag. He removed his hands from Eleven’s nostrils and watched as she gasped for air and flew up, crimson liquid dribbling down her chin as she coughed up blood. “Oh, my god, oh my god, oh my god…” Will was saying, practically hugging Eleven. Hopper stood back, his eyes seeming relieved but scared. Eleven looked confused and absolutely exhausted, not to mention pained, and the front of Will’s shirt was soaking up the blood that she’d coughed up. He didn’t care. She suddenly cried out in pain, clutching her side as she lurched forward.

Hopper ran out to call the ambulance and Mike didn’t bother to look up. For all he knew, she was gone. His heart was thumping in his ears and he could barely hear any other sound. everything else was just white noise. Dustin and Lucas sat straight up, though, waiting for some kind of sign to tell them if she was okay or not. Will walked out a few minutes later, just as out of breath as Hopper. Mike looked up then since they were both out, waiting to hear the terrible words that Will would speak. His jaw dropped when he saw the blood that had soaked through his friend’s shirt and bit down on his lips before dropping his head and sobbing again. “No, no, Mike, she’s… she’s okay.” Will said, trying to explain that she’d lived. “What…?” Mike said quietly. Dustin was smiling with relief and so was Lucas, and both of them were cheering a little bit. “She’s okay!” Lucas repeated for Mike with a bright smile. He lifted his head and looked around before getting up and slowly walking into her room, hesitant to see if she was really okay. She looked like hell, her breaths were heavy and fast, and her eyes were closed. Her face was scrunched up as she writhed, letting out a strangled cry as a wave of pain hit her. Mike turned around. “Will, what’s wrong with her?! Clearly she’s not fucking okay!” He said in more of a harsh whisper. Will scoffed. “She’s fucking alive, Mike. She made it.” 

She made it…

Mike had to wait outside while Will and Hopper waited in the other room with Eleven. He didn’t have a choice. Hopper had said if he’d gone inside, Eleven would’ve lost her mind. Plus, he would’ve too. Mike didn’t feel like it was a “better option”, though. He longed more than anything to be in there, gently kissing her forehead and holding her hand- wait, no no no, he was getting ahead of himself. Mike had to remind his mind to step back for a moment. This was a dangerous situation, plus, he still hadn't sorted out his feelings, which he now realized he needed to do sooner than later. Eleven wasn’t feeling too great, either. Emotionally, she was a wreck. She wanted to cry and give up, but she couldn’t. She was squeezing Will’s hand through every wave of pain to keep herself from digging her nails into her own skin and Hopper was pacing in her room. She had a cold compress on her forehead but it kept falling off when she’d move forward. Her body would seize up and she’d twitch every few minutes, and Will could see tears falling from her eyes with each contraction. He gulped and knew he’d have bruised hands, but a bit of soreness was worth it for her. He was willing to make that sacrifice. He felt an attachment to Eleven that he just couldn’t describe. Nothing romantic, but it was stronger than a platonic connection as well. It didn’t help that for all those years he could hear some of her thoughts in his own mind when she was gone. He never told a soul, but it would always scare and bother him. He’d hear a quiet voice in his mind trembling and giving the owner of the voice directions to run and hide from a monster, and he felt awful about never telling anyone, especially Mike. At the same time, he didn’t know who the voice belonged to, but there was no way it wasn’t Eleven. They had the same tone and all. Besides, who the hell else would be running from monsters, hiding, and also screaming in their mind at the same time? But now, all he could hear were cries and light curses that she must’ve picked up from Hopper in the past week.

Mike sat up a bit as he heard the sirens and as they got closer, they overcame the noise of El’s screams and cries. He mentally thanked the ambulance for that, as he couldn’t stand hearing the sounds of her pain. It made him want to cry, too, and suddenly the door was thrown open and a few paramedics rushed in. They looked all too familiar. A man ended up carrying Eleven out of the room and outside to get her onto the gurney and she was crying loudly every time he would bounce her as he ran due to the pain. Hopper followed after quickly, being the only one allowed to go with them in the ambulance since he was one, an adult, and two, her new legal guardian. Will was rushing after them but ended up standing outside for a few minutes while the sirens turned on louder and the ambulance rushed off, taking Eleven and Hopper with it. He came back inside and leaned against the door before his eyes lit up. He ran towards the phone and everyone was staring at him with confusion now. He dialed something and waited for the person in question to answer.

“Mom? It’s me, Will.” 

Muffled noise.

“Well, I’m uh, actually at Chief Hopper’s place…”

More muffled noise, angrier sounding this time.

Lucas was confused. “What the fuck, Will, why are you calling your mom…?” He asked in the background.

“No, no, no, Mom, you’ll never believe what happened! It’s Eleven, I think you met her when she was here… well, she uh… well, she came back, but she’s with the Chief and they’re going to the hospital. Can you send Jonathan over?” He asked awkwardly, figuring he might as well get to the point.

The boys could hear Joyce Byers yelling at her son in the background and she was definitely using some colorful language. Will sighed. “I know, I know. Yeah, I’m sorry. Thanks, Mom.” He said at the end, hanging up the phone. He turned to the others. “Okay, Jonathan’s going to drive us to the hospital. But I can’t be sure my mom won’t tell anyone else’s about Eleven being back.” He said with a shrug. Lucas looked over at Dustin and back at Mike before turning to Will. “I mean, my parents don’t know about her.” He said awkwardly. Dustin nodded. “Neither do mine… they know someone was around during that week but they don’t really know about the bad men or anything like that.” He said, gulping. Will sighed and rubbed his temples in annoyance. “Oh my god, you guys. Come on, Jonathan will be here in a few minutes.” He said, exasperated.

Jonathan was running a little bit late and looked flustered. However, he managed to get there and drove calmly into Hopper’s gravel driveway before the boys seemed to dash for the car and cram themselves in. 

“Jesus, guys, what’s the rush?” He asked. 

Will groaned with frustration. “Did Mom tell you anything?!” He asked, clearly annoyed. 

Jonathan shook his head. “No, not really. Why the hell are you here though?” He asked in response. 

Lucas peeped up in the back. “Long story…” He said awkwardly. 

Dustin decided to finish the tale. “Well, basically, Eleven’s back and we’re the only ones who knew about it until Will decided to call your mom because she just almost died again and we can’t get to the hospital on our bikes again because it’s a workout and we don’t have the energy or stamina for that and now we need a ride to the hospital because obviously Hopper can’t drive since he’s in the ambulance with Eleven.” He said, not caring to take breaths in between words. Nobody really knew how he got it out in one sentence. 

Jonathan’s mouth was wide open. “Really? Holy shit.” He said before slamming on the gas.

They arrived around twenty minutes later due to some light evening traffic on the highway. Nobody knew why the hell Jonathan took the highway as it was going to take much longer than the backroads, but his excuse was that he “didn’t know how to get there on those crappy old roads”.So, instead, Mike ended up nearly having a panic attack in the backseat of Jonathan’s tiny car while they were stuck behind a red Chevy that Jonathan almost hit five times from trying to rush and them slam on the breaks. Lucas, Dustin, and Will were desperately trying to keep Mike, and themselves, calm, but it was failing miserably. At one point, Jonathan was blasting his favorite radio station to keep them distracted from the obvious.

When they finally got there, Mike nearly tripped over himself as he ran inside. There was that god damn nurse again, yelling as him from the hallway. Will ran too. “Fuck off.” He responded when the nurse started to raise her voice a second time. They approached the information desk and were out of breath. It seemed farther away than before. Mike was shaking lightly from anticipation. She may have made it that once, but it was a miracle, and if anything happened while he was gone, it was possible that she wouldn’t have been able to pull through a second time. The lady at the desk was busily writing something down on a sheet of paper and pretending that the boys weren’t there until Mike slammed his fist on the counter and Will raised his voice. “Where’s El Hopper?” He demanded, his usually soft tone sounding desperate and angry. The nurse cleared her throat. “Calm down, sir. Hmm… El Hopper. Let me just check the wall.” she suggested, standing up. Mike rolled his eyes and ran his hand through his hair. Nobody had time for this, but the nurse seemed to take a century to walk to the whiteboard fifteen feet away to check for El’s name. “Ah, yes, she’s in the ICU, upstairs. Came in about thirty minutes ago. You’re going to want to take the elevator upstairs and find room 6A. She’ll be to the right of the hallway when you get out of the elevator.” She said, going back to writing on her sheet of paper.

Mike was jogging again towards the elevator, and Will was following him, even going faster at one point. Lucas, Dustin, and Jonathan weren’t far behind though. Mike started to rapidly press the elevator button, hoping it would get there faster. It wasn’t, and he was beginning to grow more and more annoyed with how long it was taking. He growled lowly. “For fuck’s sake…” he muttered. Nobody corrected him. When the doors opened, Mike shoved himself through as fast as he could and began rapidly pressing the buttons to the top floor. The ICU was at the very top of the hospital for unknown reasons- it was farthest away from the emergency room, which everyone found quite stupid. However, it was also the farthest away from contagious patients and such. Mike had never been in the ICU, but he knew enough about it. Apparently, Dustin’s cousin had been in the ICU when she got pneumonia and almost died. Dustin had told the boys the story when he was ten and said it was terrifying. Mike gulped the lump in his throat, which had risen yet again as the doors reopened and they shuffled out.

He was slower this time, but Will wasn’t. The boy was running towards where the nurse said to go. Mike was hesitant, Will was not. He didn’t want to see her dead or dying, and he was starting to get more nervous than ever. Mike knew he wouldn’t be able to handle that. He was beginning to come in contact with his feelings, he had been for a few days now, and he was just starting to get ready to tell her exactly what he felt when this had happened. In fact, he’d planned everything in his mind, but it crashed down around him when he watched as she seized and completely stopped breathing. 

As he rounded the corner he saw Will standing there with his hand over his mouth. Mike assumed the worst, but it wasn’t what he thought it would be. Instead, El was standing up, wearing a hospital gown and walking with an wheeling IV. She wasn’t facing him though, she was looking out of the window. Suddenly she erupted into a paroxysm of coughing and Mike watched as she weakly laid back down in her bed. Hopper had been talking to her about something, but he didn’t know what. In fact, they didn’t even know that the boys were there. Hopper gently tucked Eleven in, pulling the blankets up to her neck and turned to walk out and let her rest before he saw the guys standing outside nervously.

Hopper calmly walked outside and closed the door behind him. His hat was sitting on the chair inside of the room, and he cleared his throat, looking over at the boys and Jonathan. “She’s going to be okay. It was a miracle that she made it, and the doctors have no idea what happened or how she’s reacting now. All I know is that she’s perfectly fine now. We walked down the hallway a few minutes ago and she got some water, and it was crazy. When we got here, she was unconscious, and they had her on a machine and everything. But about fifteen minutes after we got here, she just woke right up and it was like nothing happened. She’s a-okay, though. It’s insane.” Hopper said, scratching his head.

Mike looked over at the others before sighing with relief. “Oh thank god. Is she going to be okay?” He asked. Hopper nodded.

“Yeah, she’ll be okay. We are waiting on one thing though, and those are the results from an CAT scan that they took while she was unconscious. It’s to figure out why she was coughing up blood. She might need to have surgery depending on the results.” He said grimly. 

Mike nodded softly. “Can I… can I go in?” He asked shyly. 

“Sure, kid. But only one of you at a time. She’s been through hell today. In fact, you might be just what she needs, Wheeler. Seems like you always manage to brighten her day.” Hopper said with a faint smile. Mike returned it and quietly entered the room before pulling up a chair to El’s bedside. He saw her eyes flicker open and he gave her a tiny smile. “Hey, El.” He said in an almost-whisper. She smiled back a little bit and opened her mouth to speak, but he shook his head. “It’s okay, you need to rest. Don’t speak.” He said softly, looking into her gentle brown eyes. She seemed to have a sweet sorrow in them, but he couldn’t quite place why. She moved over a little bit, closer to him, and just stared at him for a few minutes before rasping out a little whisper. “Pretty…” she said, reaching out and touching his cheek which was covered in freckles. Mike blushed and averted his eyes from hers out of embarrassment before managing to get a small boost of courage. He leaned in, close to her face. Mike’s torso was now laying on the bed like it was a desk in school when he was tired, with his arms and head on the surface and his body still in the seat. He stroked a little bit of hair off of her face and stared into her eyes. “Prettier.” He responded, smiling warmly. He saw Eleven blush a little bit and lean her head downwards to set it on the pillow. She closed her eyes and smiled a tiny bit before drifting off into a dream. After a few minutes of peacefully watching her, Mike dozed off too. 

When he woke up, Eleven was still practically passed out. However, it had been about two hours and he had noticed the sun wasn’t in the same place as before from outside of the window, he looked around, trying to figure out where everyone else was, before he saw Hopper standing outside talking to a familiar looking woman… his mother. Mike blanched and gulped quickly, turning away just as fast as he’d looked around, faked that he was still in a peaceful rest. He wished oh-so badly that he could make out what they were saying when he heard footsteps entering the room. Mike instinctively closed his eyes and pretended to still be asleep. His mother’s kitten heels clicked against the tile floor as she entered and she sighed lightly, Mike picking up on the noise. She was getting more and more close, and he was getting more and more nervous.

Karen leaned down and pushed some hair out of her son’s face before giving him a little kiss on the forehead. “Be good to her, Michael,” She began quietly, not intending for her son to actually hear him. “you’re her whole world.” Mike felt heat rushed to his cheeks and prayed to whoever was up there to not have his mother notice and try to wake him up. Instead, she just left, and he felt relief spread throughout his body. What she’d said, however, stuck with him. Mike didn’t even know she knew that about Eleven. After all, he knew that she knew he had feelings for the girl, but how'd she know it was the other way around? Maybe it was the answer to the question he had been asking himself over and over again… ‘Does Eleven really like me?’ Or maybe it was just a strange coincidence. 

Mike gulped. He heard a new pair of footsteps enter the doorway and they didn’t sound like heels. He barely opened an eye when he saw Will sit down in the chair which was still leaning against the cinder block wall, tears brimming his eyes. Mike opened the other eye but Will still didn’t notice. “I don’t know if you can hear me,” Will said quietly, clearly talking to Eleven. “but I’m so sorry. I had no idea that they did those… things to you. What’s worse is that I believed that they wanted to help you when they told me about you.” He sniffled. “But you should’ve been here a long time ago. You should’ve gone to the snowball with Mike and celebrated the Holidays, and had your first actual birthday, and gone through so many milestones. Instead, I made it easier for you to be trapped there.” Will said, now sobbing quietly. “When we were leaving, I heard them talking about making sure every gate they could find was sealed to ‘contain you’ and I knew something was wrong, I… I just never said anything. I could hear you, all those times.” He said, his sobbing was now a little bit louder. “Y-your thoughts and shit. I guess it sounds crazy but I swear to god I did. You were so scared.” Will said, lowering his head. “I never told anyone because I thought they wouldn’t b-believe me. I could’ve saved you sooner.” he cried lightly. Mike’s jaw clenched. Although Will was his friend, one of his BEST friends, and he sympathized for him, the group only had one rule: friends don’t lie. Even El knew this and she’d technically only been with them for a week. And they never, EVER break a promise.

 

** January 1984 **

“Will?” Mike asked, looking over at his friend. The boy looked up from his textbook to see the dark-haired boy staring back at him. Mike, who was the best at science in the group, was helping Will catch up from the work he’d missed due to his “doctor’s appointment” the other day.

He nodded. “Yeah, Mike?” Will asked, tilting his head lightly.

Mike looked from side to side. “Look, don’t call me crazy but… I feel like I can still hear her.” He said softly, his gaze slowly traveling down to the ground.

The smaller boy nodded lightly. “I know how you feel, but she’s gonna find her way back. I believe she’s still out there.” He said, assuring Mike in his faith to try and give the boy some of his own. 

Mike smiled sadly. “If you ever hear anything about her, from your mom or anyone else, would… would you please tell me?” He asked, a heartbroken sadness shining in his eyes.

Will nodded. “Of course, Mike.” He said with soft eyes, wanting to comfort his friend. They’d known each other for many years, and Will had never seen him like this.

“Promise?”

“Yeah, man. I promise.”

 

** August, 1985 **

Mike came back from the flashback and was about to confront Will about what he’d just said when he heard someone else speak. A soft, feminine voice that tasted like honey and felt like silk sheets. 

“It’s okay, Will.” El said quietly, her voice wavering as she was crying a little bit too. El sat up, wincing lightly as pain overtook half of her body, but was diluted slightly from the medicine she’d been taking via IV for the past few hours. “It’s okay.” She repeated. Will got up and moved over, careful not to bump into Mike as he took the girl into a light hug. They seemed to cry into each other’s shoulders for a minute before Mike fake awoke and looked over at them. “Am I uh, interrupting something?” He asked quietly, trying to sound as confused and Mike-like as he could. Will and Eleven both shook their head. “No.” They responded, and Will quietly left the room while Eleven looked down at Mike. 

He reached up and brushed a strand of hair off of her face, letting it curl around his finger before it dropped and he placed it behind her ear. Eleven smiled down at him, the corners of her lips turning up, with her quiet milk-chocolate brown eyes slightly puffy and red from crying. Mike was bad at pretending not to notice. He chuckled a little bit as the strand of hair fell right back down and she giggled as well. He’d missed that laugh. It was the same laugh he’d heard on the La-Z-Boy in his house and also the one he’d heard when he told her a shitty joke about microwaves while she was recovering at Hopper’s house. He loved hearing her laugh, and Mike would do just about anything to hear that sound. He’d be happy to listen to her laugh every day for the rest of his life.

 

** August 19/20, 1985 **

Mike had more or less been kicked out of the hospital room the past night after falling asleep next to El again while she was resting. He hadn’t been happy to leave, but he knew he didn’t want to create a scene in front of Eleven. She had been asleep when he left, so he quietly left while Hopper sat outside and waved goodbye. He’d forgotten when he fell asleep, if he and El had talked the previous day, or really how he ended up not getting in trouble with his mother when she randomly appeared in the hospital that afternoon before, but he definitely remembered one thing, and that was what Will said to Eleven. He knew that he couldn’t just slam his fist down and scream at Will, but that’s what he wanted to do. He’d broken a promise, one that was very serious to Mike, and something had to be done about it. He left the hospital with his mother that night, but woke up the next morning feeling a fire burning in his soul. He walked downstairs, telling his mother he was going to go to the Byers’. His excuse was that he couldn’t find his “favorite jacket” and that he may have left it at Will’s place. Karen obliviously agreed and let her son go off on his bike that morning.

Mike knocked on the Byers’ door to have Will open it, exactly what Mike needed. He was angry as hell and just wanted answers. “Hey, Mike… is something wrong?” Will asked, looking quite confused. 

Mike huffed. “Will, I heard what you said yesterday.” He said lowly, his eyes glued to his friend as he watched him sway a bit on his feet, gulping nervously. “You promised!” He roared, theboy’s eyes igniting with fury, sparks of amber dancing along his dark brown orbs. 

Will gulped again and stepped back. “What are you talking about?” He asked, his face paling in color. He was avoiding the obvious answer as much as he could and wasn’t about to have Mike find out anything drastic. If anyone was the most protective of Eleven in the group, it was definitely Mike. But he had a good reason- they had a special connection. They had feelings for each other, and Mike was also the first good human being that El met, so obviously they had an exceptional bond. 

Mike rolled his eyes. “You know exactly what I’m talking about Will, and don’t you fucking try to play innocent here. You knew about what happened to her. You know who did it. You HELPED them!” He half-yelled.

Will’s nose was twitching as he looked up at the boy who was nearly a head taller than him. “Fuck off, Mike.” He said, something clicking in him like a switch flickering on and off.

Mike looked down at him with surprise. “You’re telling ME to fuck off?! You let them keep her there!” He snapped.

Will gazed darkly up at him. “It’s quite frankly none of your business.” He growled. “I’m not going to give you an excuse because unlike you, I’m mature enough to step up and apologize for the things I’ve done. So, I’m sorry, Mike. I lied. But you had lost your mind back then because of this girl, and I wasn’t about to help you along a road to destruction. So yeah, I made a shitty decision. But it’s better than them finding her and locking her back up. Do you even know what they would’ve done to her or what they did in the past? She was a fucking lab rat, Mike. She was an experiment, they did fucking tests her. They would’ve been able to abuse her if she hadn’t gotten out on her own after they left. For that, I’m not sorry at all. So shut the fuck up and get some senses into your head, because I can assure you she wouldn’t be here now if she hadn’t escaped two weeks ago.” He snapped, his normally calm hazel eyes filled with ice to combat Mike’s fire.

The other boy took a step back, still scowling at Will. “What did they do to her, Will?” He asked, his fists clenched. 

Will scowled right back. “Ask her yourself. I’m not your fucking messenger. Maybe, just maybe, if she wanted to tell you, she would have.” He snapped again.

Mike left shortly after, biking home. Tears of frustration and anger dawned in his eyes and slipped across his freckled skin, making pathways that shimmered when the morning sun hit them. He had somewhere else to go and someone else to talk to. But it wasn’t who he initially thought he would ask questions. He was going back to his home.

Mike walked through the door after sloppily throwing his bike onto the ground outside. He stormed into the living room to see his mother tidying up something and looked at her, the same fire still in his eyes. “Mom.” He half-greeted. She looked up and smiled, but it disappeared when she saw her son’s expression. “Michael… is something wrong?” She asked, tilting her head slightly. Her blonde Farrah Fawcett style hair bobbed lightly as she moved. Mike gulped. “How did you know about Eleven?” He asked. Karen sighed. “I… well… you see, Michael… I received a package one day… there was a lot of information. Why, is there a problem?” She asked, trying to move on from the topic at hand. Mike wasn’t having it, a new fury erupting from him that only came out in a calmness. “I need that information, mom.” He said calmly. She looked around. “Oh… alright, but only because she’s back now. You can’t talk about this to anyone, alright? It’s highly confidential.” She said, scolding him lightly. He didn’t care.

Karen got the papers from the place she’d had them hidden for a while now and brought them downstairs to Mike, who quickly ran off to his room to read them. She sighed, resting her head in her hands. ‘Did I make a mistake giving him those papers?’ Karen asked herself. The right answer would’ve been yes, definitely.

Mike practically ripped the brown-paper parcel back open again, watching as the papers shuffled out slightly. He was careful to not let them get out of order, but began to read. He was going through dates from periods of time so long ago, he wasn’t even born yet.

It started with Terry Ives, and Mike could remember hearing about when she’d died. He overheard his mom talking on the phone with Joyce Byers and had asked who they were talking about. He hadn’t really cared when he heard the name until now. Now that he knew it was Eleven’s mother. He tried to keep his breathing calm as he read about the drugs, sensory deprivation tanks, and awful things that happened. He read about ‘Terry Ives, the delusional woman who everyone avoids’ and things like that. Mike gulped when he saw the name ‘Jane Ives’ pop up on the page. That had to be Eleven’s real name. He was thinking about it in his mind, but he couldn’t imagine calling her Jane. It didn’t fit in his brain. Of course, his lovesick mind was trying to figure out if ‘Jane Wheeler’ was a catchy name or not, but that was another story. 

He made himself a bet that he wouldn’t cry. If he lost it, he’d confront Eleven about her past. If not, he’d avoid it. Mike wasn’t feeling great about this wager he’d made with himself, but he knew there was no other way to get him to actually speak to her about it than a good old self-made bet. 

Mike ended up losing that bet. He laid back onto his bed, clutching a paper to his chest, tears falling from his eyes for the second time that day. It was the paper where one of the experiment overseers was discussing how ‘011’ was growing up and functioning with her powers in the lab. Apparently she had been rebellious when it was time for her to shave her hair, and had gotten locked into a room and starved in return. He’d read about how she would be slapped and yelled at, even kicked by guards who didn’t feel like being gentle. He was sobbing now, thinking about how broken she had been. ‘She was just a child…’ He was repeating over and over again in his mind. He remembered every time she flinched or hid and realized that these actions were taught to her over time as she learned it was the only way to escape. He ended up sniffling into his pillow for another thirty minutes before he knew he had to go see El.

Mike borrowed some money from his mom and went to the flower stand on the side of the road for the third time, buying El some pink roses. The man didn’t even ask what he was doing there, he sort of figured it was about a girl. Mike put them in his backpack, sticking out of the top, and proceeded to bike back to the hospital. 

He walked through the doors, his heart beating faster than ever in his chest. The thumps echoed through the cave that made up his body and he could feel himself becoming more anxious than ever. He knew a secret. He knew things that he wasn’t supposed to know. Mike carried the flowers around the corner only to see El standing up with Hopper at the counter. He tried not to act too off when he approached them. 

Well, he didn’t approach them first. Hopper had turned his head and gave Mike a grin. “Wheeler! Get over here.” He said, and Mike walked over hesitantly with a nervous smile. “How are ya?” Hopper asked him. Mike gulped. “I’m, uh, well. What’s going on?” He asked in respond. El smiled this time. “I’m going home.” She said with that voice that made Mike absolutely melt. He smiled bigger. “Oh, that’s great! I um, brought you some flowers.” He declared gently. El chuckled. “Thanks, Mike.” She said as he handed them to her.

Hopper ended up driving Mike back to his house so he could hang out with El for a little while before it was time for him to go to work. He trusted the Wheeler boy… somewhat, but he knew how El and Mike felt about each other, and leaving them alone in the same house with crazy teenage hormones? He thought not. If Hop had to explain why, it’d start with ‘When I was a kid…’ and end with both teenagers asleep.

They arrived, and Mike threw his plan out the window when she began to try and form sentences about a book Hopper had brought for her to read. He was reading to her, and she couldn’t really read that well on her own. Mike sort of understood why and tried to ignore the guilt bubbling up in his chest.She was talking about it so happily, and he didn’t want to ruin her moment.

Hopper let him even stay for dinner, and the three ordered a pizza. Mike and El sat on her bed, holding paper plates in their laps while they sat across from each other, cross-legged, giggling about jokes Mike knew from a joke book he found once in Nancy’s room. One made El laugh so hard she nearly spit out the coke she was drinking and she had to put her pizza to the side before she rolled off the bed, crying from how much she was laughing. She was wheezing by the time Mike helped her up and the two smiled softly at each other before Mike instinctively began to lean in before pulling himself away. He couldn’t kiss her. Not now. He needed to give her time to come in contact with her feelings.

“Hey, Mike?” El asked softly.

He realized he’d been looking directly into her eyes before he shook it off. “Oh, yeah, El?” He responded.

She looked embarrassed. “What’s love?” She inquired. “I heard Hopper talking about it…” El said awkwardly. Her sentences were getting better, and Mike couldn’t even think about that. He was blanching completely, his mind blank.

He gulped. “Well, um, I guess there are a couple kinds of love. Like…” He tried to think, his heartbeat racing. “Like Nancy and my parents and I. We love each other, because we’re family. And uh… well, there’s also objects that you can love, which means you like them more than most other things. Like, you probably love eggos, I love y- Star Wars,” Mike corrected himself quickly, thanking god he didn’t let ‘you’ come out of his mouth. “and how Hopper loves his hat. Then there’s where um… two people date and they love each other in a last way. Like, uh, Jonathan and Nancy love each other. They go on dates and kiss and stuff…” Mike explained, feeling a cold sweat on the back of his neck as El sat forward, listening intently. “Oh, and also you love your friends. Like I love Dustin, Will, and Lucas because we’ve known each other for so long and stuff…” He remarked awkwardly.

El nodded. “So… do you love me?” She asked, tilting her head slightly. God, Mike thought that was so adorable. 

“Um… yeah.” Mike said, rubbing his arm awkwardly. He was praying she didn’t ask in what way.

“What… way?” El asked, and Mike went pale, feeling blood rush to his cheeks again. 

“I uh… I don’t know… with our other friends, I guess.” He said, trying to get himself out of the situation. When he saw how disappointed El looked, he regretted it immediately. ‘Shit, shit shit’ he was thinking, repeating the words over and over again in his mind.

“Oh… okay. Thanks, Mike.” El said, shuffling a little bit as she took another bite of her pizza.

It was a few days before El figured out how she loved Mike.

He’d come over one day with flowers and they’d even held hands for a few minutes while watching one of the Star Wars movies in Hopper’s living room. When it ended, El looked over at Mike and the two met gazes. “Mike…?” El said quietly, her voice seeming to waver slightly. Mike looked down at her.

“Yeah, El?” He responded, moving over to face her. She seemed nervous. He didn’t know why, but he felt an impulse telling him to hold her and kiss her forehead and keep her close to him until she felt better. Of course, he didn’t act on it.

El gulped. “I um… I don’t love you like I love Dustin, or Lucas, or Will…” She said quietly, looking up at him through fearful eyes. 

He blushed deeply and she looked away, thinking she did something wrong. “I don’t either…” He said equally as quietly. She turned and looked back at him, something new shining in her brown eyes. He was still afraid of what she would say. 

“I love you differently… more…” She said, feeling a little bit awkward. He smiled then. “Me too, El.” He said before moving forward slightly.

He felt fireworks going off when his lips pressed gently onto hers, and it felt like that’s where they belonged. He moved forward, holding her hips slightly, and her hands found their way instinctively to the back of his neck where she kept them pressed gently, holding his head like it was holy. They both had their eyes closed, and neither really knew who was the first one to kiss the other, but they were both doing it. 

It felt like forever before they both finally moved away. After they weren’t pressing against each other, the time felt like milliseconds. Mike wished he could’ve stayed like that for an eternity. 

Eleven was blushing up at him and he could see it through the dim lighting. Hopper’s house had lights, of course, but they’d had them out because of the movie that was playing in the living room, which was where they had been when the movie started. Both were smiling a little bit and also quite out of breath before Hopper came in.

“Okay, Wheeler, your mom called. You’ve gotta go.” He said, holding his keys and his hat. Mike nodded in return and got up. “Night, El.” He said, a new kind of softness ringing in his voice. El smiled warmly. “Night, Mike.” 


	5. How She Looks in the Moonlight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something about her now made him feel so nervous, much more than ever before. He got butterflies whenever he saw her of course, but with the moonlight tracing her in a silver halo, he felt like he was absolutely melting. Mike had never felt like this before. She wasn't dressed up either, wearing a ragged Bee Gees shirt that had to have been Hopper's due to the obvious old age and a pair of grey sweatpants that were probably his own that he'd lent to her. He met her gaze again and felt his heart lurch forward, sending a rush of blood to his cheeks.

** August 21, 1985 **

El's heart was still beating from earlier when she'd shared a passionate kiss with Mike... her not-friend-but-also-not-brother. She'd just managed to fall asleep after the third nightmare of the night when she realized she just couldn't do it. It was very early in the morning, and she had no doubt Mike was asleep, as was Hopper. The Chief slept like a log, and he wasn't really a problem when it came to sneaking out, El has realized. She'd had many nightmares in the past few nights, mostly about the Upside Down, and frequently wandered through the house, even making quite a bit of a racket if she ran into something in the dark. But Hopper never stirred from his bed, so Eleven decided if there was ever a time to go, it was now.

She didn't exactly know that sneaking out would get her into trouble, but something about it made her feel rebellious. Hopper had never told her not to go out, but she knew something about it could cause problems later. For now, her main priority was laid out in front of her: Mike. She was shaking a little bit from the nightmare when she pulled on a pair of sweatpants over one of Hopper's old t-shirts that she'd been sleeping in and walked out of her room slowly. She crept down the hall like a tiger waiting to pounce on it's prey. El's eyes shimmered in the dimness of the room, only the moon shining through the drapes lighting her way. She just couldn't shake the image of the tall, multi-legged arachnid creature glowing through a paradox of red clouds. 

A mile and a half away, Will was sitting straight up in his bed, shuddering as shivers went down his spine. Beads of sweat were dripping down the young boy's forehead as he pushed off the sheets and ran to his window, throwing the blinds open, only to see nothing there. No arachnid monster. No red clouds. It was just an easy Hawkins night, the stars shining against the blackboard that made up the sky, each one like a small droplet of alabaster paint flying from a paintbrush. Tears welled in his eyes as he shut the blinds again, slowly sinking onto the ground while he began to sob silently. Will curled up into a ball and laid there for a solid thirty minutes before dragging himself into his bed and pulling the covers over his head, keeping himself completely under. 

Through the dead of night, Will could feel something else. This feeling, burning like a fire in his soul, he realized was definitely not his. It was a mixture of shared fear but also determination. A voice he recognized popped into his mind and he gasped loudly, his hand pressing against his head as he looked around from under the covers, confused. 'What does it want from us? Why is it here? Will it take my friends?' The person was asking in a shaking voice. It was most definitely Eleven. He tried to say something back weakly. 

'Eleven? Is that you? Did you see that... that thing in the sky?' Will asked, desperately praying that she would hear him. She sounded equally as confused when she answered.

'Will? What is this? How are you talking to me?' 

'I... I don't know, El. But how can you form sentences? You barely know words!'

'They're all in here... I guess they just don't come out.' She responded, but this voice was more sad. Will could almost feel how much she struggled by the tone of her voice. He knew that where she came from, they never taught her how to read properly, write, or even speak. She picked up words quickly and associated certain faces and tones with emotions or objects. However, he could understand why she had the ability to form words and sentences in her brain. Perhaps it wasn't the same language, but whatever psychic connection they had contorted and translated the words to fit. Maybe El wasn't even speaking English. Will had no idea, but somehow it was working. 'But yes, I did see it. The thing in the red clouds with many legs?' She asked, begging for confirmation.

'Um... yeah.' Will replied. He felt nervous now. Something was strange, but it felt like this connection was destined. He knew a lot of things were weird and absolutely mental around Hawkins, but a psychic connection? How crazy was that?! He didn't know what to really believe anymore, so this didn't seem like the craziest of all options. After all, Eleven had been the one to hop dimensions not just once, but several times, and also saved his ass from a demogorgon. 

'Can we talk about this tomorrow? I have ideas about it but I can't really put my finger on them now.' El said, the voice quieter in Will's head. Honestly, he didn't care. He wanted to go back to sleep and hopefully get a few hours of rest, so this sounded like a better plan for him.

'Yeah, works for me. But... El? Promise you won't tell the other guys about this, okay? They'd go nuts.' Will asked her, his voice pleading. The sandy brunette boy never wanted others to worry, and having his friends caught up over some weird monster that he, the boy who'd traveled to another dimension and magically come back to life, and her, a telekinetic girl who could also travel dimensions and fucking destroy people, were seeing in some weird, shared dream. Besides, the guys were stressed out enough.

Lucas was worried over baseball tryouts. He'd been playing baseball for years and went to a special camp every summer to train for it. Even if he was a nerd, he still played, even if he wasn't on the school team. This year, things were changing. His parents suggested it, and Lucas managed to make up his mind, and was going to try out for the school team, which had tryouts within the next few weeks since it was the start of the school year. Hawkins Middle and High School didn't really care about "seasonal" sports, they just had multiple teams doing multiple things every few months. So, he had been practicing every few days for the past two weeks, driving himself crazy over it. Everyone else had tried to calm him down, but he was worried. 

Dustin had been nervous about the fact that a new girl had transferred into the Hawkins district and was now in some of his classes. She came all the way from New York City, and her name was Larissa Washington. Everyone knew he was going to attempt asking her out, but he had no idea how, when, or why he'd even do it. Sure, he liked her, but she was a bit... well... popular. He didn't know if asking her out was going to boost his group up in popularity or end up embarrassing them even more. He was also concerned about pressure from the physical science teacher, Mrs. Briggs, who was trying to get the group to go to some kind of state-wide science tournament. 

Mike was probably the one who was driving himself most to the edge. He'd basically been taking care of Eleven, bringing her some of her favorite foods, dropping by her house for a few hours every day to make sure she was okay, and spending as much time as possible soaking up her presence. It was understandable, of course, because she'd been missing for so long and he'd almost lost her life twice. However, he was borderline obsessing over her. At the same time, another girl had been pining after Mike since seventh grade and it was getting ridiculous. Her name was Cindy Campbell, and she wasn't exactly Mike's "type". Of course, his "type" was legitimately only Eleven. Cindy's hints weren't getting so subtle anymore, and Mike had tried rejecting her before, but nothing was working. She was too damn stubborn. 

For these reasons, Will didn't want them to know. And Eleven apparently didn't want to tell them either. She'd ended up agreeing rather quickly, giving him a soft 'I promise, Will.' in response. She had a calm voice that made Will feel less terrified of the nightmare he'd just had, and something made him want to just go back to sleep. After having that chat with her, it was ten times easier for him to, and he drifted into a calm rest.

Meanwhile, Eleven was now opening the front door quietly, praying that the wood underneath her wouldn't creak too loudly as she stepped outside. A rush of cool air hit her as she closed the door. It may have been summer, but Hawkins was still a north-midwestern town, and nights could drop into the fifties while days usually stayed in the sixties and seventies. She shivered lightly, wishing she'd worn a jacket. However, going back inside to get one was too risky. One wrong move and Hopper would wake up and send her straight back to her bedroom. Eleven turned to face the cold, a new sense of determination filling her as she thought about Mike.

It was probably three o'clock in the morning when Eleven finally arrived to his house. She hadn't thought about how far away it was, but having a super mind wasn't really that bad. She could sense where he was, just like when Nancy and Jonathan had left the school that night to fight the demogorgon. She'd known where they were, and she knew where he was. This incredible ability didn't work with everyone, though. Only people that Eleven had a strong emotional bond to. For example, she always knew when Papa was walking towards her room in the hallways, and when her heart became cold to him, she could no longer tell when he was coming. When he died, she felt the last string snap after being plucked with an imaginary blade for months. 

Eleven looked from side to side before quietly opening the basement door. Of course, she ended up using her powers to do this, otherwise she wouldn't have been able to unlock it. The Wheelers had become good at keeping their house secure, as did practically everyone else in Hawkins after 1983, but some people loosened up after time. The Wheelers? Nope, they stayed with it, so did the Byers and Hopper. The Sinclairs and Hendersons didn't really know about the whole situation, but didn't question why their sons continued to lock the house up every night for a while.

She snuck through the door to the basement and felt her cold, bare feet press against the carpet. She closed the door without using her powers, wiping off the tiny droplet of blood with the neckline of her t-shirt. She slowly made her way up to Mike's room, possibly using her powers to stop the sound waves from being formed as she stepped and moved, even doing so when she got into his room. She looked over at him, her voice sounding quieter and weaker than she thought it had. She was cold, and afraid of that monster thing that she'd seen.

"Mike?" She said quietly, looking down at the sleeping boy. His eyes flew open and he almost screamed when he saw her but calmed himself down before that happened. Eleven was standing in his room. She was just… there. In his room. And happened to be standing. 

"El, what are you doing here?! It's three o'clock in the morning!" He said, rubbing his eyes. He honestly didn’t have a problem with her being there, not at all. In fact, having her with him was always a dream come true. He was just… well… tired. It was, after all, three in the morning.

She looked down, blushing a bit from embarrassment. "I... got scared. Nightmere." She nearly whispered, what he could hear of her soft voice seemed shaky and scared, like a deer caught in headlights.

He watched as her eyes travelled to the floor and bit his lip, regretting embarrassing her. Something about her now made him feel so nervous, much more than ever before. He got butterflies whenever he saw her of course, but with the moonlight tracing her in a silver halo, he felt like he was absolutely  _melting_. Mike had never felt like this before. She wasn't dressed up either, wearing a ragged Bee Gees shirt that had to have been Hopper's due to the obvious old age and a pair of grey sweatpants that were probably his own that he'd lent to her. He met her gaze again and felt his heart lurch forward, sending a rush of blood to his cheeks.

Mike didn't bother to correct her and say 'nightmare' in the heat of the moment, so he sat up and moved over, patting the space next to him. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest while she moved swiftly but hesitantly towards him. She crawled in and blushed lightly due to their close proximity, practically touching, with only the dim moonlight lining their silhouettes in a silver glow. He was blushing as well, but he didn't want to think about himself at the moment. Instead, he pulled her close, his arm holding her to his chest. He heard her breath hitch and relax as she rested her hands there, her head pressing against his collarbone. He let his head drop to sit on top of hers. They didn't even bother with their legs, letting them tangle loosely together as he felt her begin to drift into sleep. Mike couldn't, of course, not with the girl he liked much more than just a friend in his embrace. He felt like he was in a dream anyways, and he definitely didn't want to wake up.

It took him another hour before he finally fell asleep, but the entire time he was studying how she looked in the moonlight. The way her hair fell in her face and how her lips parted slightly as she slept. Occasionally he'd see her eyelashes flutter or hear her breath hitch, sometimes she'd jerk a bit or even twitch and he instinctively pulled her closer to him. Mike wouldn't let anything happen to her, not even in her mind. Not now, not ever.

 

** August 22, 1985 **

Both kids were lucky that Mike was an early riser during the school year. El? Not so much. She could sleep all morning if she wanted to since she obviously wasn't in school with them, but Mike had to wake up early every Monday through Friday for school. Even though it was the beginning of the year, he'd begun a sleep schedule and was now grateful that it was beginning to kick in since if they'd waited an extra twenty minutes before sneaking out, both Hopper and Karen Wheeler would both be awake without a doubt. El didn't understand that sneaking out was bad or wrong, but Mike would have to get her home before Hopper noticed and explain it to her.

He woke up first, in shock when he initially saw her laying beside him, low breaths rising and falling from her chest. Mike had been confused and felt incredibly nervous again, but remembered the night before. Only one of those emotions disappeared, though, and he certainly wasn't confused. Mike was now more nervous than he ever thought he'd be in his life, watching her sleep there, curled up next to him. He didn't realize he was sleeping on her arm and that it was completely numb, and would definitely be sore, until he looked on her other side after seeing his finger twitch.

Mike slowly began to pull his arm out from under her head, trying not to wake her up, but ended up failing. She slowly opened her eyes, groggy from the earliness of the morning, and stared up at Mike before her eyes went comically wide. El looked from side to side before realizing that she was in Mike's room and that they had... slept together? 'Oh, that's right.' She thought to herself. 'I had a nightmare.'

Mike gave her a gentle smile and she smiled back. "Morning, El." Mike said in a hushed tone, nearly whispering just like she had the night before. 

"Morning, Mike." El replied before she felt his fingers intertwine with hers. It was most definitely a good morning.


	6. The Dinner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joyce has El and Hopper over for dinner, and the new father-daughter duo bond over a heated game of cards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Just letting you know that chapters may become more infrequent because I just started school. However, I'm still working on them as much as I can! 
> 
> xoxo,  
> arizonasnow

**August 22, 1985**

It hadn't been the smoothest day. Eleven had woken up early in the morning with nightmares and had snuck out to see Mike, something that Hopper still hadn't found out about, and El didn't quite understand that there was anything wrong with leaving the house at random hours in the night until Mike told her she couldn't tell anyone that she'd come over. El was still getting used to the situation and how to handle things, but she was learning slowly but surely, and she felt like she was starting to get into normalcy, which is all she ever wanted. It's not like she ever had it in the first place, though. She was taken from birth and her mother was cast out, but to her knowledge she didn't even have a mother.

The morning went off to a pretty good start when El woke up for the second time, cuddled up to Mike. They exchanged a quick good morning before she realized what had happened in the previous hours and how he'd held her close until she fell asleep. She also remembered how cute he looked with his moppy black hair sticking out in all directions and weary brown eyes, and felt a butterflies bubbling up in her gut. She didn't even notice when an involuntary grin curled onto her lips, as it did almost every time she thought about Mike.

Not every time, though. El was still feeling guilty about how she'd ended up departing from the Rightside Up so quickly and leaving Mike alone and grieving, along with Lucas and Dustin. Even Will, Joyce, Nancy, Jonathan, and Hopper were upset when she disappeared, though. Hopper felt awful for selling her out and being the reason she ended up there in the first place, and felt like he was partially making it up to her while he signed the final signatures on her adoption papers days earlier. He wanted to give her the childhood she never had and the future she would've never gotten had she been kept in that laboratory or even worse, died in the Upside Down,  _because of him_. Joyce grieved because of how much Eleven had helped her. Without her, she definitely wouldn't have found Will, due to her powers and knowledge on the Upside Down. She still remembered holding the soaking wet, shivering girl in her arms and praising her for the deed she'd done. While she was doing so she had almost forgotten that she was an experiment or training to be a soldier to fight commies. In that moment, she was both a child and a hero. Nancy lamented the young girl who her brother was smitten with who also was the first to successfully find the body of Barbara Holland. She could see in their eyes that something was between them, and she wouldn't forget what had happened to Mike when she disappeared. Jonathan mourned the girl who helped locate his brother, and felt as if he couldn't possibly repay her. Will never knew her, but he grieved Eleven and felt guilty over never being able to thank her.

But now things were different. She was back, alive, and doing somewhat well. She could walk on her own again and hadn't suffered brain damage, but something was definitely wrong since she came back from the Upside Down. The doctor had been extremely concerned for her reproductive system as well as her nervous and cardiovascular systems. According to him, the air was toxic, and she wouldn't be able to do hard exercise for very long so she wouldn't overwork her heart and lungs. Her reproductive system was in shambles because of radioactive waves that reacted badly with her developing body, but there was a chance she could still function normally, and Hopper was praying she'd come to him crying about having a period someday instead of crying about never being able to have children. As for her nervous system? It was a mess. Sometimes she couldn't feel her legs and she'd straight up fall over, while sometimes she got fuzzy feelings in her mind and everything was hazy. There was no healing for these, and the doctors said that she'd just have to see if she grew out of the damage, although it was unlikely.

Nobody knew about these ailments except for Hopper, and a little bit with Eleven. She knew something was wrong, but she couldn't understand enough to know exactly what the problem was. She was just happy that she was back, could see Mike, and had a family. It wasn't much, but to her, living with Hopper meant everything. He was her guardian- he kept her safe and quite frankly made her happy. She was glad that she wasn't with Papa anymore, but with the Chief of Police instead.  

Meanwhile Hopper was gruffly walking through the living room, in his pajamas, at four pm to answer the phone that had been consistently ringing for the past ten minutes. He picked up only to hear the familiar voice of Joyce Byers on the other side, rambling about reasons for El and himself to come to a dinner with them. Hopper knew that it wouldn't be anything fancy- the Byers were very simple people, as were he and El, so it was going to be extremely casual. He finally agreed after she managed to drag on the conversation for around ten minutes, leaving her satisfied in the end when they promptly hung up.

Hopper sauntered into El's room to see her sitting on the floor, reading through a children's book. He'd had a ton left over from when Sara was around, and he'd ended up keeping them for memories when he realized that Eleven could use them to learn. So, she was trying to read through a book of nursery rhymes, her brow furrowed in thought as she attempted to connect the words to objects that she knew or other things in her mind. Hopper almost didn't want to interrupt her before he realized he had to.

He cleared his throat. "El, honey, we have to go to dinner at the Byers in a few minutes. Nothing too fancy, just meet me in the living room when you're ready." He declared as she nodded lightly.

"Okay." She responded with a light smile, simply excited just to have been invited. He returned her smile and left her to finish getting ready before he pulled on a nicer shirt and sat down on the sofa.

El came out a few seconds later, after having run a brush through her soft brown hair and sat down next to him, only to get back up after a few seconds so that they could leave. It wasn't too long before they were in the car in a quiet silence that neither of them seemed to mind. El was a girl of few words and Hopper wasn't exactly talkative either, so it was the perfect kind of silence where nothing needed to be said. Their auras seemed to speak a thousand words.

The drive to the Byers' house wasn't long at all. Just a few short minutes before Hopper pulled his car into the "driveway" and got out. El followed after him, carrying a jacket in her arms that he'd left in the car. Before he rang the doorbell, she tapped his shoulder lightly and handed him his coat with a gentle smile. He felt himself heat up from embarrassment. He'd forgotten his jacket and this little girl had beat him to the punch. She was intuitive for sure.

Joyce quickly answered the door with a bright smile and rosy cheeks. "Hello you two! I'm not done cooking yet but El, why don't you go see Will? He's in his bedroom, it's two doors down the hallway." She said, pulling them both in. El gave her a polite smile and a nod before heading off to Will's bedroom while Hopper just looked around the house.

"So how's Bob?" He asked gruffly. Joyce rolled her eyes. "I'll send him your regards." She said with a light chuckle, regarding to her new boyfriend. Hopper would've been lying if he said he hadn't been jealous at one point, but he had to remind himself that if it was going to happen, it would've happened.

-

El knocked on Will's door and heard a quick "Oof!" as he struggled to get up and open the door. He was rubbing his kneecap when he managed to turn the knob and El chuckled softly. "Sorry, El, I didn't know you'd get here so early. I was working on my homework and you scared me pretty badly." He said, grinning. El returned this expression. He fidgeted with his hands for a second before inviting her in and plopping down onto his bed. 

She sat down beside him, looking around and admiring the photos hanging on his wall. Since Jonathan was, after all, his photography-loving brother, most of Will's big moments were captured by his camera. Eleven found herself involuntarily smiling when she came across pictures with Mike in them, and photos of the boys messing around. Some of Will's drawings were scattered on the wall, blending with the photos, but there was a spot in the middle that perplexed El.

She tilted her head and pointed as if to ask Will why there was nothing in the middle. He shrugged sheepishly. "Well, the picture from when Lucas, Mike, Dustin, and I won the science fair a while ago used to be up there but..." He began, suddenly feeling timid. "I wanted to get a picture with all of us." 

El smiled. "Dustin, Lucas, and Mike?" She asked, wondering who 'us' was.

Will shook his head quickly and the two met gazes. "You too, El. You're one of us now. You're family." He said with a shy grin. Eleven looked down at the ground before smiling again and leaning in to give Will a quick hug. She rested her head on his shoulder and smiled softly. 

"Thank you." El said quietly, pulling away.

Her relationship with Will, however, was different than it was with Dustin or Lucas. Even Mike. Although she loved Dustin and Lucas very much, she felt something much more for Mike. Will was somewhere in the middle. As far as she understood, he was her 'not friend but not more' also known as a 'brother'. They weren't related in blood, but something made El feel compelled to trust him. The two had a special bond after all, especially with their newly discovered connection. They didn't really use it that often due to the fact that it drained El's powers and made Will rather tired in addition. 

Finally they heard a knock on the door and realized it was time to get up and go meet Jonathan, Hopper, and Joyce in the tiny dining room that the Byers used. They didn't frequently have more than three people over as guests for dinners, and they didn't need a big dining room table like the Wheeler's. Instead, theirs usually had three seats but occasionally they'd pull up more for guests, and now there was an office chair floating through the kitchen and a camouflaged pop-up chair that nobody really knew why the Byers had.

El stood up and Will followed milliseconds afterwards, both kids trailing into the kitchen after Jonathan who had come to inform them that dinner was starting. Joyce was waiting in the kitchen where she was struggling to get together placemats, and Hopper was already seated in one of the chairs while Jonathan sat down too. Will went go to take his seat when he noticed El going to help Joyce, and he felt a burst of pride in his heart. She was so kind, not needing to, but helping his mother carry silverware and placemats over to the dinner table where the others were waiting. He noticed El going back to get the cups and he beat her to it, earning a quick smile from the brunette girl.

They all sat down and Joyce brought in the food. She wasn't a great cook, but nobody seemed to mind. The grocery store always had pre-made meals that seemed to satisfy both families, and it was not necessarily the first time Joyce gave up on trying to make a legitimate meal. She'd first tried making a casserole and failed miserably, so she ran to the grocery store, picked up macaroni and cheese, bread rolls, and a rotisserie chicken that she popped into the oven and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was actually not bad.

But again, no one really cared. It was the effort that went into it that made it good food, and everyone in the room, with the exception of El, of course, knew about Joyce's cooking troubles. Even so, El was happily eating her meal and trying to tag along in the conversation that was beginning to bud like a springtime blossom. That conversation was about school.

Jonathan was in his final year of high school and was graduating in the spring. He was already applying for colleges and so was his girlfriend of a year and a half, Nancy Wheeler. They were trying desperately to get accepted to go to the same school and were applying for all of the same ones, with high expectations on both ends. El didn't understand the concept of high school, middle school, and definitely not college, but she was enjoying the discussion on Hopper boasting about his years at Indiana State University. Joyce had gone there as well, but she graduated before Hopper. Both adults were trying to veer his interests to that school, but it seems he had his eyes set on NYU or UCLA.

Will was talking about his misadventures in high school, which had only just started, and got a few laughs out of everyone, especially El. However, she felt differently. While everyone else was happy, as was she, she still felt like she was missing out on so much. They had education. They had family. They had childhoods and memories of fun times while she had the feeling of cold hands against her skin trapped forever in her mind and scars covering her body from being in the wrong place at the wrong time. She gulped as she took another bite of chicken while Will recapped his week.

"Oh, and Mike kept tripping over his own legs during PE. It was hilarious. El, we need to get you to school soon. Mike's always worried about you." Will said with a light smile. El blushed fifty shades of crimson and looked over at him. "Me...?" She asked quietly, surprised that Mike would even think about her when she wasn't around. She thought about him all the time, but she always felt weird about it afterwards since he wasn't always there. 

Will nodded with a light chuckle. "Yeah. We'll be walking down the hallway and he'll suddenly start going on and on about how he's worried about you. He's really scared that you'll disappear or something. I know you won't though." He said, and El nodded softly. "You know, he's been doing a lot better since you came back though. Even if he's always thinking about you in class, which is obvious, apparently his grades got better and all. You're a miracle, El." He joked lightheartedly, and El blushed again but giggled softly as well.

Dinner was finished and finally it was time for Hopper and El to go back to their own house. El reluctantly said her good-byes to Will, Jonathan, and Joyce before heading out to the car with Hopper, letting the warm, humid late-summer breeze brush against her skin. Hopper started the car as she got in a few minutes after him and the two drove back to the little house by the lake, the radio playing some of the 70s disco music that Hopper seemed to live for.

As Hopper opened the door, Eleven began to look around after hearing some kind of noise. He stopped turning the knob and instead let his attention travel to the area around them after hearing the noise too. It was a twig snapping, and wildlife didn't really come by Hopper's area of the lake shore, so it was especially strange. His hand instinctively pressed against the gun he always carried in his belt and he pulled it out, standing protectively in front of El.

"Who's there?!" He called loudly. 

One beat. Two. Three.

A rabbit scurried out of the bushes, pausing for a second as it saw Hopper and El before leaping away quickly. Both were extremely relieved and went back inside to get ready to go to sleep. Neither of them had a good sleep schedule- Hopper seemed to stay up all night doing nothing and Eleven either had nightmares or was flat-out bored. Sometimes she'd read children's books or work on writing, and sometimes she'd just stare at the ceiling as her hands shook from the visions running through her mind. Either way, nights were rough for both of them and they weren't really looked forward to.

Hopper locked the door behind him as El shuffled inside and went back to her room to change into her pajamas.

"Night, kid." Hopper called after her before she closed the door, to which she turned around and smiled sweetly.

"Night, Hop." She responded, closing the door gently behind her as she leaned against it for a good five seconds, thinking about the night she'd had.

Although she knew she would never be in some kind of Nuclear Family, she figured that what she had was the closest she was going to get, and it felt good. She loved and supported, even by the smallest of things that they helped her with. Everything added up to a bigger sum that El thought she would've never had in her lifetime, and it meant the absolute world to her. 

She changed into her pajamas and realized that she was wide awake. There was absolutely no way of her being able to fall asleep at the current time. She stood up and sighed, running a hand through her brown curls, looking around the room to decide what she should do. There weren't many options. Her brain was practically fried from reading children's books all afternoon in hopes of learning how to read and write faster, so she didn't want to do that. There was really nothing else unless she went to see what Hopper was up to.

He wasn't doing anything either. Hopper was sitting on the couch with a bottle of beer as he read through a newspaper. He looked up the moment El walked in and gave her a small smile. "Can't sleep, kiddo?" He asked. El nodded meekly, sitting down next to him.

"Hmmm... have you ever played cards?" Hopper asked. He was getting better at finding ways to entertain her, and it wasn't hard in the first place because she could watch paint dry and still see it as exciting due to her lack of fun as a child. El shook her head, sitting up a little bit in the couch cushion, turning a little bit to face him. Her soft brown eyes were full of curiosity as she watched him lean over and pick up a deck of cards sitting on the coffee table and began to shuffle them after he took them out.

He was concentrating on shuffling while settling on teaching her a simple game of go-fish. He'd definitely teach her poker if cards seemed interesting to her, and he had no doubt she'd be good at it. The girl had the best poker face she'd ever seen, unless Mike Wheeler was around. Then it was game over for her seriousness and always a big smile gracing her features.

Hopper cleared his throat and El was still looking up at him curiously. He smiled. "Okay, so I'm going to give you seven cards and give myself seven cards too." He began, dealing out seven cards to each player. El didn't touch hers yet. "You're going to pick yours up, but don't show them to me, and this big pile in the middle is called the pond. It's where you go when someone calls out go-fish." He explained, and El was tilting her head.

"What is... go-fish?" She asked meekly, picking up her cards gracefully as Hopper looked over his own quickly to see the numbers he had. 

"Well, you look at the cards you have and ask me if I have one of the same cards. If I do, I give it to you and you place it down in a pair. If I don't, then I say go-fish and you have to draw a card from the middle deck. The goal is to have no cards left, and that's when somebody wins the game." Hopper explained, reaching over to take a sip from the Sam Adams that had been sitting on the coffee table for five hours, respectively. It had no fizz left, but Hopper didn't quite care.

El nodded, taking in the information quickly. She was a smart girl and a very fast learner, to Hopper's amazement. "I'll go first just to show you how it's done." Hopper offered, and El nodded eagerly. She'd been hoping she wouldn't have to go first.

Hopper looked at his cards. "Hmmm... got a king?" He asked, watching as El squinted her eyes and looked over her cards. She had learned from Mike what every card meant, but the two never had time to actually play a round, as he had to leave early that day. She shook her head after a few minutes. "Go-fish?" She said hesitantly.

Hopper chuckled and nodded, reaching down and picking up a card from the deck. He huffed before smirking. "Alright, your turn." He replied quaintly, and El moved to sit Indian-style on the couch, facing him. She was squinting hard at her cards before her face straightened into a perfect poker face and she calmly asked her question.

"Got a queen?" El asked, looking up at Hopper to determine the answer. He huffed and shook his head with a light chuckle.

"You got me kiddo." He answered, sliding the card across the fabric of the sofa over to her. She grinned from ear to ear, pleased with herself, and put the pair of cards off to the side. 

The game took around five minutes before El won. Hopper was going to let her win whatever game they were playing, but there was no way for him to make himself lose at go-fish. She just naturally won. 

"You're pretty good at cards, kid." Hopper said, ruffling El's shoulder-length waves lightly with a grin. El smiled back and giggled before getting up and heading back to her room. 

"Night, Hop." El said softly as she closed her door. 

"Night, kid." Hopper responded, hearing the click of the light switch and watching the yellow-tinted glow disappear from under her door. He could hear her mattress springs bounce as she jumped into bed and he smiled lightly.


End file.
